Interactions between business counterparts have become increasingly free from boundaries, as technological innovation brings the world closer together (Adler, 2002). Locally, the typical South African organisation employs workers from a multitude of cultural backgrounds, at various levels of acculturation. Organisational coaches must be prepared to engage with diverse national and international client populations. Coaching bodies such as the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC, 2008) and the locally-based Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA, 2009; COMENSA, 2010), require coaches to provide culturally responsive services to coachees. If the coach differs culturally from the coachee, he/she may incorrectly use his/her own understanding of what is appropriate for a situation to make sense of the coachee’s behaviour, possibly leading to the misinterpretation of the diverse coachee’s situation. In addition, the coach may also project his/her own cultural bias and stereotypes onto the coachee. This in turn may lead to barriers in communication, and ultimately to the inhibition of efficiency of the coaching process as possible outcomes. Inefficient coaching may not allow for the achievement of the desired results, leading to financial losses for the company. Therefore, it is imperative that the coach is aware of his/her own culturally-laden values, beliefs and expectations which may include biases, prejudices and stereotypes held about the coachee, i.e. his/ her cultural self-awareness. The purpose of the current research study was to explore and describe the experiences and perceptions of South African organisational coaches in terms of cultural self-awareness. Specifically the study investigated how eight South African organisational coaches (N = 8) develop, maintain and promote cultural self-awareness, and what the perceived consequences of such awareness were. The study was conducted within the constructivist research paradigm and utilised a qualitative research approach. The multiple case study research strategy employed in-depth interviews to collect the research data. A grounded theory research methodology was used to analyse and explore the experiences and perceptions of South African organisational coaches in developing and utilising cultural self-awareness. Eight findings were obtained from the interviews, namely: the cultural self-awareness cultivated during coaching developed as part of a general process of cultural self-awareness, which in turn formed part of the participants’ personal development; both intentional strategies and happenstance led to the coaches’ cultural self-awareness; situational and internal factors contributed to changes in their cultural self-awareness; cultural self-awareness is maintained through self-management involving internal and external strategies; future cultural self-awareness is promoted through pursuing experiences that would cause them to question bias; a change in cultural self-awareness held consequences for the personal developmental process as well as for the coachee, and the coaching process; the meaning of cultural self-awareness was explained by using metaphors. The most prominent metaphors the coaches used were ‘sight’, ‘the past’, ‘internal work’, and ‘managing’; additional psychosocial processes that occur during intercultural coaching which can be grouped under macro, meso and micro issues, contextualised the process of cultural self-awareness during intercultural coaching. The findings were interpreted to show that various levels, developmental paths, and applications of cultural self-awareness exist amongst organisational coaches. On the basis of the results obtained from the research study, recommendations were made for future research, coaching education and training programmes, coaching clients, and current or prospective coaches. / Thesis (MA (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

This study considers the usefulness of the Intercultural Development Inventory in measuring the intercultural sensitivity of a sample of teachers at an established international school in Thailand. In this study, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was used to measure participants’ levels of intercultural sensitivity (ICS), based on Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). To crosscheck the IDI findings and to provide additional insights, qualitative research using interviews of a sample of teacher participants was undertaken. Comparisons were also made with previous studies using the IDI to measure teacher levels of ICS. The aims of the study were to provide additional data about ICS among teachers at an established international school and to look for correlates relating to demographic factors. Specifically, the study aimed to assess the usefulness of the IDI to international schools looking to enhance ICS among students and teachers. The study concludes that the IDI is applicable to an international school context in measuring the intercultural sensitivity of teachers. The results showed that teachers in international schools involved in this study have higher levels of ICS than their counterparts in national schools who took part in previous studies. With respect to the participants in this study, 67.9% were operating in Bennett’s Minimization stage in the DMIS. Levels of ICS were positively correlated with years living in another culture, professional development related to ICS and knowledge of a foreign language. The findings provide insights into and opportunities for further study. Other studies may find similarities with respect to professional development for teachers with respect to ICS, teacher recruitment, gender differences, and levels of ICS among faculties at both national and international schools.

Neste trabalho, que se insere no âmbito das relações interculturais entre o Brasil e a França, buscamos analisar e discutir a representação do francês - o povo, o idioma e a cultura - na Música Popular Brasileira. Nosso objetivo é, pois, verificar como o humor, a presença da língua francesa e as marcas dessa cultura contribuíram para um projeto de consolidação de uma identidade nacional. Baseando-nos em alguns conceitos da semiótica greimasiana e igualmente nas noções de dialogismo e polifonia expostos por Mikhail Bakhtin, pretendemos observar os procedimentos da organização do discurso, bem como apreender as forças (as modalizações) que movem as personagens no interior da canção e como essas se desenvolvem enquanto atores sociais de uma determinada época, esclarecendo, na medida do possível, as relações entre o discurso (circuito interno) e suas condições sócio-históricas de produção e de recepção (circuito externo). Nossa hipótese parte da premissa de que, assim como a identidade brasileira, a imagem do francês foi também construída. A pesquisa inclui ainda um catálogo de referência relativo às canções mencionadas no corpo do trabalho, assim como apresentação em CD dos fonogramas originais de 1909 a 2005 (em anexo). / This study, which fits into the environment of the intercultural relationships between Brazil and France, searches to analyze and discuss the representation of French - its people, language and culture - in Brazilian Popular Music. The objective is, therefore, to verify how humor, the presence of the French language and its cultural markers have contributed to a consolidated project of a national identity. Based on some Greimasian semiotic concepts and equally on the notions of dialogism and polyphonia exposed by Mikhail Bakhtin, the study intends to observe the organization of discourse, as well as to learn about the forces (modalizations) that propel the characters inside the song and how they develop whilst social players of a determined era, clarifying, whenever possible, the relationships between discourse (internal circuit) and socio-historical conditions of production and reception (external circuit). The hypothesis starts from the premise that, just like the Brazilian identity, the image of the Frenchman was also constructed. The research also includes a reference catalogue relative to the songs mentioned in the body of the work, and also a presentation on CD of the original phonograms (annexed).

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine how the concept of "cultural relativism" is used in the current literature pertaining to intercultural communication. This concept is central to much of the work being done on face-to-face intercultural communication, but a preliminary review of that literature indicated ambiguity and lack of concurrence among authors' views regarding the concept. This research was designed to describe the range of authors' views on cultural relativism as well as to provide some historical and critical perspective regarding "cultural relativism."

This thesis investigates the role of drama in the intercultural education of young people. It considers the relationship between the fields of drama education, intercultural performance and ethnography. The drama curriculum is explored as a site of intercultural learning and performance pedagogy. The thesis also examines the place of ethnography as an embodied, participatory practice in intercultural drama pedagogy and performance research. The study is placed in a context of international exchange and cultural pluralism, and is framed by debates about intercultural performance and the appropriation and representation of cultural narratives. This investigation of interculturalism within the drama curriculum is grounded in an ethnographic study conducted in Melbourne, Australia in a multicultural secondary school community. The study documents the experiences of approximately forty young people who participated in an African drama and performing arts project called ‘The Gods Project’. ‘Jean’, a Kenyan performing artist who was undertaking a two-year residency in the school, led the intercultural performance project. Participants were involved in drama and performing arts workshops, an ‘African’ creative arts camp and a performance of a play, The Gods are not to Blame, by Nigerian playwright Ola Rotimi. The interpretative account of the project draws on ethnographic data from the first year of Jean’s residency in the school and six months of intensive fieldwork in the second year of her residency. It also includes longitudinal data that was collected from a group of participants up to four years after the project. I collaborated with Jean and with a group of senior students, who volunteered to be ‘student co-researchers’, to record and analyse the diverse experiences of participants in The Gods Project and to interpret its educational, social, and aesthetic impact within the school context. Jean’s pedagogy of intercultural story telling within the drama classroom and her role as a ‘cultural guide’ throughout the project was explored. As a participatory ethnographic researcher, drama educator and ‘assistant director’, I worked alongside Jean and the students as they played with, talked about, resisted, created, adapted, subverted, embodied and performed intercultural performance texts. Drawing on Turner (1982) and Schechner (1988), I conceptualised The Gods Project as an intersecting social and aesthetic drama. The phases of ‘social drama’ and ritual were used as a framework for the data analysis and as a structure for the narrative account of the project. Turner’s concepts of the ‘liminal/liminoid’ and ‘communitas’ were applied to the participants’ experiences at the creative arts camp and within the workshop and performance space. ‘Dark play’ was identified as the young people’s response to the difficult social drama they were involved in; their subversive play provided a way to engage with the ‘strangeness’ of the cultural material and the play’s ‘dark’ story and themes. The participants’ dramatic play informed the emerging aesthetic drama and facilitated their intercultural meaning making. The students’ efforts to make sense of and interpret a performance text embedded in a Yoruba context resemble the task of an ethnographer attempting to understand and represent socio-cultural experiences. The study demonstrates that through a process of collaborative ‘intercultural reflexivity’, ethnography can enhance intercultural drama education. The pedagogical features of The Gods Project are related to Turner’s concept of performance ethnography and the role of a ‘cultural guide’ in intercultural teaching and learning is highlighted. With the guidance of their Kenyan teaching artist many of the young people engaged with different socio-cultural perspectives, actively explored new cultural performance conventions and art forms, and experienced the complexities of intercultural representation. The study reveals evidence of significant social, personal, intercultural and artistic learning outcomes for participants within this school-based performance project. However, the study also reveals the difficulties and challenges of implementing an innovative intercultural project within a school context. It demonstrates that kinaesthetic, playful, embodied and performative experiences are central to intercultural teaching and learning.

The purpose of this paper is to find out pedagogues approach to intercultural education through IVIK, goals and guidelines, the school for newly arrived students and how student experience and knowledge are utilized. In my study, I used a qualitative research method. I have interviewed four teachers and four students and a school administrator at IVIK. Results of the study show that most teachers have a good understanding of interculturalism, but that doesn’t mean that teachers make of this relationship means in their teachings. Lack of knowledge about students' cultural background means that teachers can´t integrate it into their teaching. Another result is that the school has no clear goals, students are not faced with high expectations and the school will not be on the student's own experiences. Pupils' prior knowledge is mapped and not the pupil's needs are met. The key aspects that emerge are that teachers should have knowledge of their students' cultural backgrounds in other words, become inter-culturally competent, the school must have clear goals and guidelines and will offer training that is tailored based on student needs and abilities, and student prior knowledge must be identified on the student school language. For individual support and education to plan and to primarily utilize the student's skills and strengths and not focus on the student's potential lack of ability.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Adviser: Chia-Fang Hsu. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study is to search for and compare how teachers in a multicultural municipal school and in a multicultural independent school design their teaching to benefit all the students in the classroom, regardless of background. I wanted to get information about how teachers work from an intercultural perspective. To get information I used qualitative methods, which includes interviews and observations. I interviewed four teachers working in a primary school. Two from a independent school and two from a municipal school. The result revealed that both the independent school and municipal school are working from an intercultural perspective where they try to find different methods to reach every student in the class. Their biggest similarity is that the teachers put a lot of effort on language development since the Swedish language is key to the Swedish society. In both schools, the teachers worked with students both individually and in groups, but the difference is that in the independent school the teachers focus more on the individual than they do in the municipal school. This may be due to such factors as the number of students in the class and access to an assistant teacher. The teachers in the independent school gives priority to order and structure in the classroom, compared to the municipal school.

Interactions between business counterparts have become increasingly free from boundaries, as technological innovation brings the world closer together (Adler, 2002). Locally, the typical South African organisation employs workers from a multitude of cultural backgrounds, at various levels of acculturation. Organisational coaches must be prepared to engage with diverse national and international client populations. Coaching bodies such as the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches (WABC, 2008) and the locally-based Coaches and Mentors of South Africa (COMENSA, 2009; COMENSA, 2010), require coaches to provide culturally responsive services to coachees. If the coach differs culturally from the coachee, he/she may incorrectly use his/her own understanding of what is appropriate for a situation to make sense of the coachee’s behaviour, possibly leading to the misinterpretation of the diverse coachee’s situation. In addition, the coach may also project his/her own cultural bias and stereotypes onto the coachee. This in turn may lead to barriers in communication, and ultimately to the inhibition of efficiency of the coaching process as possible outcomes. Inefficient coaching may not allow for the achievement of the desired results, leading to financial losses for the company. Therefore, it is imperative that the coach is aware of his/her own culturally-laden values, beliefs and expectations which may include biases, prejudices and stereotypes held about the coachee, i.e. his/ her cultural self-awareness. The purpose of the current research study was to explore and describe the experiences and perceptions of South African organisational coaches in terms of cultural self-awareness. Specifically the study investigated how eight South African organisational coaches (N = 8) develop, maintain and promote cultural self-awareness, and what the perceived consequences of such awareness were. The study was conducted within the constructivist research paradigm and utilised a qualitative research approach. The multiple case study research strategy employed in-depth interviews to collect the research data. A grounded theory research methodology was used to analyse and explore the experiences and perceptions of South African organisational coaches in developing and utilising cultural self-awareness. Eight findings were obtained from the interviews, namely: the cultural self-awareness cultivated during coaching developed as part of a general process of cultural self-awareness, which in turn formed part of the participants’ personal development; both intentional strategies and happenstance led to the coaches’ cultural self-awareness; situational and internal factors contributed to changes in their cultural self-awareness; cultural self-awareness is maintained through self-management involving internal and external strategies; future cultural self-awareness is promoted through pursuing experiences that would cause them to question bias; a change in cultural self-awareness held consequences for the personal developmental process as well as for the coachee, and the coaching process; the meaning of cultural self-awareness was explained by using metaphors. The most prominent metaphors the coaches used were ‘sight’, ‘the past’, ‘internal work’, and ‘managing’; additional psychosocial processes that occur during intercultural coaching which can be grouped under macro, meso and micro issues, contextualised the process of cultural self-awareness during intercultural coaching. The findings were interpreted to show that various levels, developmental paths, and applications of cultural self-awareness exist amongst organisational coaches. On the basis of the results obtained from the research study, recommendations were made for future research, coaching education and training programmes, coaching clients, and current or prospective coaches. / Thesis (MA (Industrial Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

The current global and local issues of culture such as September 11, the Bali Bombings and the “Cronulla Riots” triggered a question for the researcher: “how do primary students deal with intercultural communication in multicultural Australia in times of cultural uncertainty and complexity?” Intercultural communication studies in Australia rely heavily on those of the United States of America and the United Kingdom. For this reason, this study was planned to investigate intercultural communication in a multicultural classroom in a primary school in Australia. The research employs an ethnographical case study methodology with data collected from observation, interview and documentation. 56 Year 7 students and two classroom teachers from two classes and the school ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher were included in the study. Amongst the 56 students, 24 students were interviewed along with the classroom teachers and the ESL teacher. School documents regarding the promotion of intercultural communication were also collected during the observation period. The study found that differing language capacities of students and teachers have the greatest influence on intercultural communication. Language was observed to influence positive and negative intercultural communication in the classroom. The study also confirmed that the theory of Intercultural Communication Competence (Wiseman, 2002) supports the current ethos of this school’s curriculum. Overall, the study provides a vicarious experience of intercultural communication in an Australian multicultural classroom. Intercultural communication in this particular school did not appear to be problematic. This could be due to the teachers’ endeavours to promote intercultural communication both implicitly and explicitly. In concluding, the study suggests that this school could be a model for promoting intercultural communication with a few modifications to its programs.