Teaching code

4S000599

Teacher

Paola Dusi

Coordinatore

Paola Dusi

Credits

6

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

M-PED/04 - EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Language

Italian

Period

Sem. 2A dal Feb 18, 2019 al Mar 30, 2019.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars

Learning outcomes

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND MEDIATION
Such is the intercultural nature of contemporary social contexts that intercultural communication skills have become indispensable for those who wish to operate effectively in these environments, whether professionally or simply as citizens. Communication between people is an inherently fragile process that is open to misunderstandings. In exchanges between people, each participant brings with them a set of subjective characteristics and aspects of culture that are unique to their particular life context. Communication is therefore, inevitably, an act of mediation.
In verbal discussions, analogue and digital aspects are tightly interwoven. Each of these dimensions is characterised by cultural frameworks – of which language serves as both expression and (at the same time) co-constructor – but is also strongly affected by the participants’ own communicative awareness (personal style, dominant culture, communication skills). The course outlined here is designed to provide students with a theoretical grounding and improve their intercultural communication and mediation skills, with a view to facilitating their role as professionals in related sectors. The course focuses in particular on the Critical Incident/Culture Shock technique developed by Margalit Cohen Emerique. The intention here is to encourage the adoption of an intercultural approach in social work.


Knowledge base and interpretive skills – By the end of the course, students will be expected:
- to be familiar with the epistemological foundations of intercultural communication;
- to be familiar with the principal models of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and intercultural mediation;
- to be familiar with the constituent elements of the critical incident technique.

Applied knowledge and interpretive skills – By the end of the course, students will have acquired and/or developed:
- the ability to recognise and understand the various preconceptions and values from which different cultural frameworks are constructed;
- the ability to recognise different communication styles.
- the ability to employ the critical incident technique as both a tool for the analysis of case studies, and as a tool in interventions.

Autonomous decision-making – By the end of the course, students will have developed:
- the ability to form a critical understanding of existing correlations between societal demands and the intercultural communication approach.
- an awareness of the hidden side of culture, and the impact of our different conceptions and understanding on our relationships and our way of being in the world;
- the ability to recognise the distinctive and relative aspects of their own dominant cultural and professional models.

Communication skills – By the end of the course, students will be expected:
- to be able consciously to employ terminology specific to intercultural approaches to education;
- to have developed basic intercultural competences, and specifically:
i. an awareness of their own personal communication style
ii. the ability to use listening skills to manage relationships with users and colleagues more considerately and effectively
- to have developed basic competences in intercultural mediation.

Learning skills – By the end of the course, students will have developed:
- the ability to utilise critical incidents for personal (and team) learning;
- the ability to identify and locate sources and tools to help them develop their intercultural competences;
- the ability to use different models of intercultural competence for analysing/assessing/improving their own communication and mediation styles.

Program

COURSE PROGRAMME

Summary of course contents:

1. The multicultural global society
- Promoting inclusion and democracy: an intercultural outlook

2. Intercultural competences:
- The system of intercultural competences
- Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)
- Communication styles
- A method for developing ICC: Critical Incidents.


3. Intercultural mediation
- The concept of mediation
- Cultural vs. intercultural mediation
- Conflict resolution
- Instruments for cultural mediation

Teaching methods and learning settings

In additional to traditional lectures, the course is based on workshop-type activities, in particular:
a) showing video/film sequences, with accompanying discussion and analysis.
b) reading passages from autobiographical and narrative texts by experts in intercultural competence and/or authors from a migrant or non-Western background.
c) critical incidents, with accounts provided by social work professionals.
d) analysing interviews carried out with social work professionals who work in areas characterised by dense migrant populations.

Course requirements

- familiarity with the concept of competence
- familiarity with the main concepts that underpin the intercultural approach
- a grounding in the basic principles of human communication.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Cohen-Emerique , Per un approccio interculturale nelle professioni sociali e educative Dagli inquadramenti teorici alle modalità operative. Erickson, Trento, 2017

The content of the texts used during the course and that of the lectures and class exercises will follow the programme outlined here. Additional learning materials and the template for interviews with social work professionals will be available on the course e-learning platform.

Bibliografia

Examination Methods