Nicole Soley
HONR 201
Dr. Corley
Friday, May 3, 2013
Finding a Common Lens in a Shrinking World
We’ve all heard it said before: this world is becoming smaller and smaller
everyday. Today’s economy is indeed a global economy, and we hear each other
across the world on a daily basis through the news, the Internet, and through the
people that surround us. Each of us has an incredible perspective to offer the world.
To be able to understand each other’s perspectives, global citizenship must exist. To
be global citizens, we must understand culture and how cultures relate and differ
from each other. In order to be able to do this, individuals must realize what global
citizenship means as well as the process of how to become citizens across the globe.
Through the courses offered through the Honors Program, I will be able to develop
this understanding of what global citizenship is defined to be, and how to develop
my skills in this area. The honors courses I have already taken, particularly the
Introduction to Honors Course taught by Dr. Corley, have defined global citizenship
as the lifestyle of becoming intercultural-ly competent through the understanding of
both objective and subjective culture, having intercultural mindsets, as well as
becoming ethnorelative.
Broadly, an individual who wants to become a global citizen needs to first
understand what intercultural competence means in a broad sense. In the
introductory Honors course, students are able to learn from an assessment
developed specifically for the purpose of understanding students’ attitudes toward
culture and how those attitudes can be changed. The Intercultural Development
Inventory, or IDI, developed by Emily Stark (Minnesota State University, Mankato)
and Mitchel R. Hammer (Ph.D. IDI, LLC) is a profiler of a group’s “orientation
towards cultural difference or commonality” within an identified population (2).
The assessment defines intercultural competence as “the capability to accurately
understand and adapt behavior to difference and commonality” and applies to
understanding these “differences and commonalities in values, expectations, beliefs,
and practices” (3). In order to become a global citizen, one must have this ability to
understand commonalities and differences in cultures in addition to the
understanding of how to adapt behaviors to these similarities and differences. By
learning this concept of understanding and adaption, one will be able to properly
understand that culture is made up of both similarities and differences. After this is
understood, the student can move to achieving intercultural competence through
understanding objective and subjective culture, having intercultural mindsets, as
well as moving from housing ethnocentric views and attitudes to housing a mindset
of ethno-relativity.
The understanding of both objective and subjective cultures is one of the first
steps to becoming intercutural-ly competent. Through lectures on global citizenship
given by Dr. Corley in Intro to Honors, objective culture is defined as culture that can
be seen from the exterior. Food, traditions, and holidays are all examples of
objective culture. Subjective culture defines itself as the culture that can’t be seen
from the exterior; the culture that can only be discovered through personal mindset,
study, and submersion. In Fernando M. Reimers’ 2009 article “Global Competency:
Educating the World,” a “Tri-Dimension” method of learning subjective culture is
thoroughly explained. The process includes developing a “positive disposition
towards cultural differences and a framework of global values,” learning the “ability
to speak, understand, and think in languages foreign to the dominant language of
one’s native country,” and finally, gathering “deep knowledge and understanding of
[a different culture’s] world history, geography…and a capacity to think critically
and creatively at the complexity of current global challenges” (25). In other words,
one must have a positive disposition or “openness” towards other cultures, develop
skills in a second language, and learn the “deep knowledge” of other countries’
histories, geographies, and economies. By learning how to develop my own
understanding of subjective culture through Reimers’ “Tri-Dimension” approach, I
will be better equipped to put this into action through first, reinforcement of an
open attitude towards other cultures including my own, developing second language
skills through courses offered at MNSU, and also gathering knowledge of a country’s
politics, historical events, geography, and economic history and present-day through
courses and submersion in another country through a study abroad experience.
Even past my time here at Minnesota State, I intend to continue my study of culture
as I travel and study art. As an art educator, I plan to travel when I can to learn the
cultures of other places than my own. This will be important so I can teach global
experience to my students. My studies in art will help me to learn subjective culture
as well. Even though it may seem that art is primarily objective since it is in fact a
primarily visual experience, by studying the cultures behind the art and the lives
that created the work, I will be developing my “deep knowledge” of subjective
culture, which will also remain important in my career as an art teacher so I can
educate my students in not only how art looks externally, but also the culture that
caused it to look that way.
The second step to becoming intercultural-ly competent after the
understanding of objective and subjective culture is achieved, is developing
intercultural or global mindsets. By achieving global mindsets, one will be able to
better engage in learning other cultures and move toward intercultural competence.
Within the IDI assessment, it is recognized that “individuals and groups who have a
more intercultural mindset have a greater capability for responding effectively to
cultural differences and recognizing and building upon true commonalities” (3).
The ability for individuals and groups to respond to differences and find
commonalities to build relationships and understandings upon will help an
individual be able to better engage in cultural learning and therefore assist the
individual in his or her development of intercultural competence. The mindsets that
allow this engagement to take place include “maki[ing] sense of cultural differences
and commonalities based on one’s own and other culture’s values and practices,”
“us[ing] cultural generalizations to recognize cultural difference,” and “support[ing]
more complex perceptions and experiences of cultural difference and commonality”
(3). By being able to identify cultural difference based on one’s observations of their
own culture, by recognizing differences in cultures through generalizations, and
having “complex perceptions and experiences” of differences in cultures, an
individual is enabling him or herself through these mindsets to better engage in the
development of intercultural competence and overall, will have a better
understanding of what he or she is learning about cultures. Personally, developing
these global mindsets will enable me to better learn culture in my coursework and
my experiences. I will be able to be more engaged in my learning of culture if I
understand my own culture and am able to identify commonalities and differences,
have a complex understanding of what culture is, and train myself to recognize
difference in culture through generalizations. Especially going into a career in
education, I need to have a trained mind that understands the complexity of each
individual’s culture. In the classroom, this will make me a better teacher since, with
these understandings, I will be relatable to each individual student. By relating to
my students, I can better communicate with them as well as better realize how to
teach them.
A third component of becoming competent in cultures involves the process of
moving from an ethnocentric attitude to an attitude of ethno relativity. During the
Introduction to Honors course, students learned that being ethnocentric meant
“viewing the world form the lens of your own culture” where as being ethno-relative
meant “acknowledging that other cultures exist and having a willingness to suspend
judgment until you know more about them.” Being ethno-relative does not mean
abandoning your own culture, but instead it means understanding your own culture
and also the other cultures that exist in the world today. Through understanding
your own culture in addition to other cultures, an individual is better able to house
perspectives that recognize more than one way of viewing the world and that there
is more than one way to do things. This is essential to becoming intercultural-ly
competent and it can be accomplished through “education, disposition, knowledge,
and skill” as identified in lecture. Moving to an attitude of ethno relativity also
“requires personal study and introspection.” This change from viewing the world
from an individual’s own lens to recognizing that there are many different lenses to
look through can be caused by exposure to differences as well as similarities of
other cultures. During my time here at Minnesota State, I plan to expose myself to
other lenses through the Honors courses, my art courses, and through my
experiences of study abroad, language study, and employment. After graduation, I
plan to continue exploring the many lenses of the world through my artwork and
exploration of other artwork, traveling, and my own experiences in the work
environment, as ethnorelativity flourishes there as well.
As I figure out how to develop my intercultural competence through
understanding objective and subjective culture, developing global mindsets, and
moving toward behaviors of ethnorelativity, I realize how much there is to learn
about culture and the ways other individuals view the world. I am excited to
continue learning through my experiences and classes here at Minnesota Sate, and
throughout the course of my life. I believe that as the world becomes smaller and
smaller, if we all make an effort to better understand each other, diverse
perspectives will be realized, and perhaps we may all be able to find or create new
lenses we can all see clearly through in order to solve conflict, build relationships,
and better this world for tomorrow.
Works Cited
Reimers, Fernando M. "Global Competency: Educating the World." Harvard
International Review (2009): 24-25. Web.
Stark, Emily, and Mitchell R. Hammer, Ph.D. Intercultural Development Inventory V.3
(IDI). 2007. IDI, LLC, Berlin, Maryland.