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About culture

Bits and pieces for educational purposes

Generated by the project team in 2021

Erasmus+ school project “May ICT be with you”

CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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What is culture?

  • growing, cultivation;
  • way of life;
  • art, music and literature;
  • beliefs and attitudes;
  • growing and breeding; also
  • cells and bacteria.

Source: The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

“Culture is the human made part of the environment, which can be divided into material and subjective culture.”

―H. Triandis

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What is cultural intelligence (CQ)?

“ CQ is the ability to function effectively in different cultural contexts.”

―Wieke Gur

  • knowing yourself
  • knowing others
  • leading together

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What is intercultural competence?

“The ability to communicate effectively in cross-cultural situations and to relate appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts.”

Milton Bennett

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Experience of difference by M. Bennett

Ethnocentric stages Ethno-relative stages

Denial

Defence

Minimization

Acceptance

Adaptation

Integration

I don’t care.

I fear.

All human beings are the same (like me).

I accept, but not necessarily agree.

I can change my behaviour.

I can mediate between different cultures.

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“The Value of Cultural Diversity:

Rhetoric & Reality”

Notes on the talk that Milton Bennett gave in Tallinn (2017)

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The globe is not melting

  • Assimilation and global convergence is a myth.
  • Globalization means more cross-cultural contact and diversity

“What are we going to do with that diversity?”

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Multicultural vs mono-cultural teams

Those multicultural teams whose leaders acknowledge cultural differences outperform mono-cultural teams.

Those multicultural teams whose leaders suppress cultural differences underperform mono-cultural teams.

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Newtonian paradigm (Positivism)

Universal reality

  • The civilized
  • Barbarians
  • Savages

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Einsteinian paradigm (Relativism)

No real communication

Culture A

Culture B

Culture C

Culture D

Echo-chambers

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Quantum paradigm (Constructivism)

Everything connected

The “C” culture

The “c” culture

(what people experience)

(what people create)

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Reconciling unity and diversity

Focus

uniformity divisiveness

UNITY DIVERSITY

Innovation

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Discussion questions

  1. At what stage of cultural sensitivity are you?
  2. At which stage would you like to be?
  3. Cultural intelligence is a must. Do you agree? Why? Why not?
  4. “Culture is not a thing. Culture is what we are doing.” (M. Bennett)

Do you agree?

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Web sources