One of the
main things which I focus on, for myself and with our students, is what you
might call “intercultural” growth, which I would define as having to do with
understanding culture and the process of growing to understand and relate
effectively to people of other cultures.
A tool for
understanding such growth is the “Intercultural Development Inventory” (the
IDC), which I have written about previously (it used to be called the “Developmental
Model of Intercultural Sensitivity”). (See https://idiinventory.com/products/the-intercultural-development-continuum-idc/ for a diagram of the IDC.)
The spectrum of how we experience cultural difference runs
from Denial
(lack of awareness of cultural difference, and pulling back from it) to Polarization
(reaction against difference, with one culture being “right” and “good” and the
other being “wrong” and “bad,” less human, strange, incomprehensible, etc.; the
two variations are Defense, where my culture is right and good and the other is
wrong, etc., and Reversal, where I am more critical of my own culture and people,
and committed to another culture) to Minimization (glossing over
differences, focusing more on human similarity) to Acceptance (being
open to difference and curious about it, basically accepting others in their
difference rather than pushing them to be like me or evaluating them from the
perspective of me) and finally to Adaptation (cognitive –
developing the ability to shift perspective, seeing things from the point of
view of the other – and behavioral – learning to adapt to the life patterns of
the other cultural context). (The Intercultural Development Inventory is the
inventory/instrument which places a person on the IDC; see https://idiinventory.com/.)
A central
question is, how do we grow as the kind of people who see and respond
positively to difference / to different others, who have the ability to enter
into their contexts without fear, without polarizing (attacking or pulling
back), without glossing over difference – taking people seriously as they are, embracing
them in their common but differently expressed humanity?
This is one
of the main questions (or cluster of questions) of my life, and of our work
with our MESP students, and will be a topic of further reflection… J
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