Manual for Developing Intercultural Competencies

Front matter

MANUAL FOR DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCIES

Darla K. Deardorff

Manual for Developing Intercultural Competencies

Contents

List of figures/tables/photos/boxes Foreword Acknowledgements

Introduction 1

The task 2

Foreword

All societies in our contemporary world are the result of intercultural communication. They are built on the momentum of cultural diversity, which has been a source of strength and transformation throughout human history. This is particularly clear today, in a world where a great diversity of people live closely together, their co-existence intensified by social media and technological communication, changing the economic and cultural landscapes even in the most remote places.

Although individuals and communities are more connected than ever, conflicts and misunderstandings persist between and within societies. Hate speech spreads the idea that diversity and unity are irreconcilable and fuels violent acts that can dissolve the social fabric in the long term. The world is torn by conflicts and wars, and new global challenges and threats — such as populism, deep inequalities, and violent extremism — are on the rise, undermining women and men's abilities to live together.

UNESCO’s mandate is essential to address these pressing challenges, as it aims to build peace in the minds of men and women by building mutual understanding. In this regard, promoting intercultural dialogue is essential, and UNESCO has been appointed as the lead agency in the United Nations System for the International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures (2013-2022).

Fostering intercultural dialogue means, above all, to give access to every people's culture and history and highlight the continuous articulations between cultural diversity and universal values to show the ways in which intercultural exchanges fuel humanity’s vitality.

This is at stake in UNESCO’s role to promote the universal value of the elements of the cultural World Heritage, as in the Constitution of General and Regional Histories showing how our heritage is the result of a history of mutual influences between civilizations.

As opportunities to listen, share, talk, and understand have multiplied, we have a pivotal role in encouraging and fostering these exchanges so that x Foreword humanity further benefits from such communication. To do this, we need to ensure that every culture has access to the adequate means of communication and information and can make its voice heard.

As intercultural dialogue is above all a dialogue between peoples, its main day-to-day challenges are to change mindsets to foster respect and openness and to provide men and women with the means to engage with each other.

Education is one of our major means to convey these values and to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations, to provide individuals with key competencies to act as engaged and responsible citizens in today’s world. However, these skills also have to be part of a lifelong process based on experience and reflection, gathering cognitive, affective, and motivational elements. This is the reason for initiatives to empower individuals with the skills to manage personal encounters and experiences with “cultural others” and engage in intercultural dialogue.

It is in this spirit that the Manual for Developing Intercultural Competencies proposes the flexible and adaptable tool of Story Circles. Through the technique of storytelling, the manual aims to facilitate positive peace by cultivating intercultural dialogue through the strengthening of interaction and understanding across differences.

Prior to this publication, the methodology of Story Circles was tested by UNESCO in five countries across different regions of the world — with Youth in Thailand and Tunisia, sexual minorities in Zimbabwe, indigenous peoples in Costa Rica, and immigrant pupils in Austria. In all pilots, participants reported that they had acquired strong skills for tolerance, empathy, critical thinking, and listening for understanding.

I hope that this manual will be a powerful instrument to scale up cultural literacy and mutual understanding. By giving opportunities to every woman and man to familiarize herself or himself with intercultural competencies, UNESCO is definitely contributing to reinforcing the foundations for lasting and peaceful societies.

Audrey Azoulay Director-General of UNESCO

Acknowledgements

Following the publication of “Intercultural Competencies: Conceptual and Operational Framework” in 2013, UNESCO created a concrete, adaptable, and effective tool to fill the gap among the existing methodologies in the field of intercultural competencies. To assess the regional applicability of the tool, to train facilitators, and to refine the methodology, pilot sessions were undertaken in Thailand, Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, Austria, and Tunisia. An abbreviated version of the Story Circles methodology was also implemented in Vanuatu.

We would like to thank all the young women and men who took part in these Story Circles pilot exercises, as well as the partners who contributed to its success:

In Bangkok, Thailand — Mr. Ellyas Enda Hadinata Bangun, former Thailand country manager for AIESEC; Mr. Joel Mark Barredo, program manager for research at SHAPE-SEA, Mahidol University; Dr. Pablo Ramirez, Dr. Patama Satawedin, and Dr. Chutima Kessadayurat of Bangkok University; and Ms. Nuanrudee Kaewtha, Ms. Tadtanee Seeopa, and Chanon Buddharaksa from the Asian Maritime Technological College.

In Harare, Zimbabwe — representatives from UNFPA, Katswe Sistahood, Restless Development ZiCHIRe, and Magitare Trust for participating in the Train the Trainers workshop. Special thanks to Restless Development, Magitare Trust, and Katswe Sistahood for support in mobilizing the participants and for facilitating the pilot sessions in the community.

In San José, Costa Rica — Ms. Viviana Boza Chacon, Vice Minister of Youth and the Ministry of Culture and Youth of Costa Rica; the Vice Ministry of the Presidency for Political Affairs and Social Dialogue from Costa Rica; Parque la Libertad; the Office of the Ombudsperson in Costa Rica; and the Spanish Cultural Centre in Costa Rica xii Acknowledgements

In Vienna, Austria — Ms. Aloisia Worgetter, former Head of Unit “Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue” (now Austrian Ambassador to Belarus) and Mr. Ernst-Peter Brezovszky, Head of UNESCO Unit, both from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration, and Foreign Affairs. The Federal Ministry of Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, who coordinated the pilot in Vienna; Ms Iris Rehklau and Ms Mirela Memic from the Austrian Integration Fund, who participated in the Training of Trainers session and facilitated the sessions with schoolchildren in the Franz-Jonas-Europaschule. Special thanks also go to the director of the school, Mr. Christian Klar, for his hospitality and openness to letting the schoolchildren participate in a Story Circle experience. Our sincere gratitude goes to Claudia Reinpreicht, ambassador at the Austrian delegation to UNESCO, who orchestrated the entire endeavor, and to Ms. Katharina Schaufler, who facilitated the joint efforts between Vienna and Paris.

In Tunis, Tunisia — our gratitude goes to the officials from the Arab Institute of Human Rights, in particular President Abdelbasset Ben Hassen, Director Lamia Grar, Mr. Wahid Chehed, Ms. Nada Ben Faiza, Ms. Hela Cherif, and Mr. Aziz Belatek.

Special recognition goes to the colleagues from UNESCO’s field offices (Bangkok, Harare, San José, Rabat, and Apia) who assisted in the organization of all pilots.

We would also like to thank Mr. Abe Radkin, Executive Director of the Aladdin Project, for having integrated the Manual for Developing Intercultural Competencies as a permanent feature in the International Summer University for Intercultural Leadership (IUIL), held each year in Istanbul, Turkey.

We are particularly grateful to those who contributed with texts to this publication, thus reporting their personal experience with the Story Circles methodology: Mr. Adam Sharpe, Mr. Farai Muronzi, Ms. Luciana Batalla Bunn, Ms. Maria del Mar Obando Boza, Ms. Iris Rehklau, Ms. Anna Haase, Mr. Kheireddini Abdelli, Ms. Yasmine Wartani, Mr. Sacha Silbermann Apeloig, and Mr. Harry James Olikwailafa. Our heartfelt thanks go to the young student Ms. Islem Briki for the permission to publish her poem.

The final manuscript was peer-reviewed by Mr. Dov Lynch and Mr. Hugue Ngandeu Ngatta, who provided constructive comments and suggestions. This manual would not have been possible without the firm support

Acknowledgements xiii of Ms. Nada Al-Nashif, the UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences.

The author of the manual, Professor Darla K. Deardorff, wishes to express her gratitude to the experts and students around the world who participated in the interviews, focus groups, and reviews of this methodology and manual, in particular: Dr. Lily Arasaratnam-Smith, Dr. Mattia Baiutti, Dr. Ina Baumann, Dr. John Biewen, Ms. Dana Cassell, Dr. Duane Deardorff, Dr. Makiko Deguchi, Dr. Prue Holmes, Dr. Catherine Jaeger, Dr. Sonja Knutson, Ms. Kathryn Rosenbaum, Mr. Craig Storti, and Dr. Yian Wang, as well as students at Duke University (US), National University of Singapore (Singapore), Nelson Mandela University (South Africa), North Carolina State University (US), Shanghai International Studies University (China), Thammasat University (Thailand), Toyo University (Japan), and Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), as well as participants in the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication in the US, BCCIE Conference in Canada, NAFSA Conference in the US, BFSU Beijing Teachers Conference in China, Harvard University Global Education Think Tank in the US, REIES Conference in Ecuador, and the amazing UNESCO team in Paris. Professor Deardorff wants to acknowledge the work of civil rights activist Mr. John O’Neal and of Ms. Kay Pranis, whose work on circle processes helped to provide a foundation for this methodology, as well as the much earlier work of Ms. Rachel Davis DuBois, which served as an inspiration for developing this methodology further.

UNESCO and the author also wish to acknowledge that circle processes as such are rooted in traditions and ways of life of indigenous communities, and express appreciation to the indigenous leaders who shared their circle processes with non-native peoples in the 1970s as a way of bringing people together to resolve differences and conflicts.

UNESCO Editorial Team ides The Intercultural Competences Tree, a visual conceptualization

Roots: Culture (Identity, Values, Attitudes, Beliefs, etc.) and Communication (Language, Dialogue, Nonverbal behavior, etc.) Trunk: Cultural Diversity, Human Rights, Intercultural Dialogue

Branches: Operational steps (Clarifying, Teaching, Promoting, Supporting and Enacting Intercultural Competences)

Leaves: Intercultural Responsibility, Intercultural Literacy, Resilience, Cultural Shifting, Intercultural Citizenship, Conviviality,

Reflexivity, Creativity, Liquidity, Contextvalization Cues, Transvaluation, Ubuntu, Semantic Availability, Warm Ideas, Skills, Uchi Soto, Multilingualism, Disposition, Emotions, Knowledge, Translation, Intercultural Communicative Competence. Some of the leaves have been left free so that this tree, which is very much alive, can be complemented upon the rich diversity of contexts available worldwide.

Figure 0.1 UNESCO Intercultural Competencies Tree

This UNESCO Intercultural Tree provides a map for understanding the different dimensions involved in intercultural relations.

Source: UNESCO. (2013b). Intercultural Competencies: Conceptual and Operational Framework, Paris: UNESCO