AP/ANTH 2300 3.00 Intercultural Training Skills
The thought of experiencing immersion in another cultural context is both exciting and potentially anxiety producing. How can you develop intercultural competency skills in advance? This course is designed to help you develop those skills and become more confident about what you will experience in a university exchange placement. It was originally designed for iBA students to negotiate their learning goals in a cross-cultural context while on university exchange. It may be of interest to non-iBA students and international students who want to gain competencies for multi-cultural settings (for work, travel, or as international students) through better understanding the reasons for cultural differences, misunderstandings, and conflicts.
In this course, we examine culture shock and the rich anthropological toolkit used to develop cultural competencies. We consider contrasting contexts of socio-centric and ego-centric societies. Cultural misunderstandings and conflicts are very common in intercultural situations; therefore, we examine cultural idioms, forms of address, gifting, and many other aspects of verbal communication. We also explore non-verbal communication, and cross-cultural differences with friendships and relationships. Part of the intercultural experience is negotiating histories and socio-cultural contexts that are often completely unfamiliar, therefore we look to the experience of others to guide us and become more aware of these contexts for specific destinations. One of the critical factors for success abroad is knowing yourself and understanding how others see you, so our goal is to reflect on ourselves and consider issues of positionality. What does it mean to be a woman or POC in another cultural context, for example? We also explore the way that intercultural experiences can be transformative. Finally, we examine practical steps in terms of addressing health and risk abroad as well as the return experience. The format of the course combines lectures, videos, discussions of readings and practical exercises.
Course Director (Fall 2024): K. Schmid – kschmid@yorku.ca