Teaching code

4S000599

Teacher

Paola Dusi

Coordinator

Paola Dusi

Credits

6

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

M-PED/04 - EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Period

Sem. 2A dal Feb 19, 2024 al Mar 29, 2024.

Courses Single

Authorized

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars 0

Learning objectives

General Learning outcomes Knowledge and understanding - Knowledge and understanding of the principles concerning the listening attitude - Knowledge and understanding of the empathic relationship Ability to apply knowledge and understanding - Ability to develop a collaborative and constructive relationship both with the user and the other professional roles involved in the helping processes. Specific learning outcomes: The course is designed to improve students’ awareness of the complexity of the relationship between service-provider and service-user when social workers are required to support people whose cultural background is different from their own. Key subject areas include the impact of the service-provider’s (i.e. social worker’s) beliefs and understandings, communication style and sensibilities (in terms of sensitive subject matter) on the support relationship, as well as the importance of intercultural negotiation and mediation in the management of support activities with people who are themselves migrants or come from a migrant background. The course focuses in particular on the Critical Incident/Culture Shock technique developed by Margalit Cohen-Emerique – which places the (future) professional, with their particular frame of reference, areas of sensitivity and communication style, at the heart of the process of reflection – to help the student develop an intercultural approach in their work going forward.

Learning outcomes – theoretical knowledge and skills:
By the end of the course, students will be expected to:
- understand the concept of the “frame of reference”;
- be familiar with the primary barriers to engagement and communication with the other;
- be familiar with the key components of the Critical Incident methodology;
- understand how the processes involved in cultural or intercultural mediation are structured.

Learning outcomes – applied knowledge and skills:
By the end of the course, students will be expected to be able to:
- recognise and interpret the assumptions and values that determine different cultural frames of reference;
- recognise different communication styles;
- apply the Critical Incident methodology to analyse specific cases and interventions.

Learning outcomes – independent appraisal skills:
By the end of the course, students will be expected to have developed:
- the capacity to critically appraise the relationship between social needs and an intercultural approach to communication;
- an awareness of the hidden aspects of a culture and the impact of our preconceptions and beliefs on our way of being in the world and in relation to others;
- the ability to recognise the specific and relative qualities of our own cultural and professional models.

Learning outcomes – communication skills:
By the end of the course, students will be expected to:
- be familiar with the technical and academic terminology relating to an intercultural approach to the subjects of interest;
- have developed core intercultural competences, specifically:
i. awareness of their own frame of reference and communication style;
ii. listening as a path to more effective and mindful management of relationships with colleagues and service-users
- have developed core competences in intercultural negotiation.

Learning outcomes – interpretive skills:
By the end of the course, students will be expected to be able to:
- use the Critical Incident methodology as a mode of personal (and team) learning;
- identify and source tools and materials that can be used to develop an intercultural approach in their work;
- use models of intercultural competence to analyse/evaluate/improve their personal style of intercultural communication/negotiation/mediation.

Prerequisites and basic notions

Pre-requisites:
- knowledge about the multicultural nature of contemporary heterogeneous societies and their challenges for coexistence;
- a grounding in the basic principles of human communication;
- familiarity with the construct of “competence” .

Program

Summary of course contents:
1. The multicultural global society
- Promoting inclusion and democracy: an intercultural approach
2. Margalit Cohen-Emerique’s Critical Incident methodology for training support-services professionals – part 1
- Critical incidents: a training methodology for developing an intercultural approach.
- Barriers to understanding the other
- The other's frame of reference
- Communication styles
3. An intercultural approach: the Cohen-Emerique method, part 2 – Conflict resolution:
- conflict and their resolution;
- negotiation;
- the concept of mediation;
- cultural vs. intercultural mediation;
- devices for mediation;
- managing the support relationship in collaboration with cultural mediators.

Bibliography

Didactic methods

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, ted-talks, 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) Analysis of critical incidents re-enacted by Cohen Emerique according to the method of critical incidents studied during the lectures.
d) Analysis of critical incidents narrated by social workers also collected by students during the lecture period and which will become part of the final essay.
e) Role-playing activities on the shock/shock situations presented during the lectures.

Learning assessment procedures

ASSESSMENT. Scope of assessment:
Students will be required to demonstrate:
1) familiarity with the basic principles of Margalit Cohen Emerique's intercultural approach;
2) the ability to critically analyse, from an intercultural perspective, critical incidents and experiences presented in the classroom and/or collected by a social worker on duty;
3) familiarity with the basic principles of intercultural communication (ICC) and mediation;
4) the ability to formulate lines of reasoning in a concise, academically rigorous, and syntactically accurate manner, not least by identifying the essential elements that emerge in relation to the themes and issues under consideration.
Nature of the assessment and material covered:
The test through which learning will be assessed is in written form. It consists of writing a short written essay*, in which the student will individually present a critical analysis of the critical incidents presented in the lessons, through the formulation of a classification of the same, with the support of the concepts, theoretical and intervention models proposed during the lessons (cultural frames, relational modalities, critical nodes, skills required, etc. in encounters between people with different reference cultures).
Furthermore, cases of shock/narrative collected from social workers in service will be analysed according to Cohen Emerique's critical approach, using Cohen Emerique's grid (7 questions) presented in the course of the lectures.
Instructions for the written essay.
The essay consists of an argumentative text through which the student presents:
(i) Cohen Emerique's cross-cultural approach and his training model;
(ii) analyses a shock case collected from in-service social workers using Cohen Emerique's grid;
(iii) produce a classification of the underlying problems (problemi di fondo) encountered in the shock cases analysed in class using, as appropriate, the concepts, theoretical models and interventions covered during the course;
iv) appendix reporting group analysis of critical incidents addressed during the lessons.
Instructions for drafting the essay
It is recommended that, in support of the argumentation in the presentation of the topic (the intercultural approach) and Cohen Emerique's method (shock/shock or critical incidents), reference is made not only to the textbook indicated in the bibliography, the contents of the lectures and the supplementary material available in the moodle, but also to concepts and texts addressed in the training course and through bibliographic research.
The data analysis process should be supported by references to the texts covered during the course (and to other works and studies known to the student).The recommended length is 5 pages (each of 2.500 characters) plus the bibliography and appendices.
The essay should include:
- a cover (with full names and matriculation numbers of the student or students, the name of the degree course, the project title, and a contact email address and telephone number;
- an abstract/brief summary of the project;
- introduction;
- Cohen Emerique’s intercultural approach and her critical incidents training model;
- classification and analysis of the critical incidents presented during the course;
- conclusion;
- bibliography
- appendices: critical incidents analyzed during the course.
The text should be subdivided into paragraphs and supplemented, in a proper academic fashion, by footnotes and final bibliography (following the guidelines uploaded in the moodle of the course).
The short essay must be sent by e-mail to the professor by 1 p.m. on the day of the roll in which you registered for the examination.

Evaluation criteria

Marks will be awarded on the basis of the following performance criteria:
The essay must provide clear evidence of learning:
-command of specialist terminology pertaining to the sector in question;
- by analyzing and discussing the critical incidents presented in class;
- by citing the texts indicated in the bibliography and other texts identified during the research process,
- by providing a personal interpretation of, and reflection on, the lessons attended bibliographical sources.
- demonstration of personal reflection on the material studied and the ability to reconcile theory and practice;
- correct grammar and syntax.

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

The assessment result will be expressed as a score out of a possible thirty marks

Exam language

Italiano Inglese

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