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 13, 2023 al Mar 30, 2023.

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

- familiarity with the concepts of “competence” and “the intercultural approach”
- a grounding in the basic principles of human communication.

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 – Negotiation and Intercultural mediation
- Conflict resolution: negotiation
- The concept of mediation
- Cultural vs. intercultural 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, 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) analysing critical incidents.
d) analysing interviews carried out with social work professionals who work in areas characterised by dense migrant populations.

Learning assessment procedures

ASSESSMENT. Scope of assessment:
Students will be required to demonstrate:
1) familiarity with the basic principles of the intercultural approach.
2) familiarity with the basic principles of intercultural communication (ICC) and mediation.
3) the ability to analyse the critical incidents and experiences recounted/collected via the interviews from an intercultural perspective, demonstrating that they have fully assimilated this form of inquiry and learning.
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 assessment of learning outcomes:
- An individual written essay, which:
i) critically analyse Cohen Emerique’s intercultural approach and critical incidents’ training model; ii) produce a classification of the critical incidents presented during the course, using, as appropriate, the concepts, theoretical models and interventions covered during the course (i.e. cultural frames, communication methods, sensitive areas, critical nodes, required competencies, etc. relating to encounters between people from different cultural backgrounds).
Instructions for drafting the essay
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 or students). The length of the essay is to be decided by the student or students themselves. The recommended minimum length, however, is 5 pages (each of 3,000 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.
The essay must be submitted by email to the course leader within the exam date selected by the student.

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