Month: October 2023

RiceBreaker for ICD

Intercultural Pedagogy

Spry, Amber D. (2023). The #RiceBreaker: Facilitating intercultural dialogues in the classroom by engaging shared experiences. Journal of Political Science Education, 19(2), 195-204.

Amber Spry has invented a very cute icebreaker using discussion of how different students in a class cook rice in order to spark intercultural dialogues. It should be a good starting point for other instructors.

The activity asks students to answer a straightforward question: “how does your family or your culture cook rice?” By using the example of a simple ingredient found across the globe, the activity demonstrates how students can hold different perspectives on the same topic based on their own experiences, and models for the class how to approach conversation throughout the semester when perspectives on a given topic may vary. This activity provides an example of how a classroom icebreaker can be used in a way that facilitates dialogue, promotes participation, and models intellectual respect.

Her starting point is Political Science, but it seems likely to work for those in other disciplines as well. For example, it has already been adapted for the foreign language classroom by Sahai Couso Díaz on Language Panda.

If you prefer to listen to a podcast, Spry has been interviewed on the topic for radio station KCRW: Using a ‘ricebreaker’ to start a conversation about cultural identity.

Hughes & Bartesaghi Guest Post: Disability as Intercultural Dialogue

Guest Posts
Disability as Intercultural Dialogue. Guest post by Jessica M. F. Hughes & Mariaelena Bartesaghi.

Ethnomethodologist Carolyn Baker argues that culture is not a pre-made context for action to unfold, but rather an ongoing moral order of categories and categorization, where locally produced categories become “locked into place” (2000, p. 99). This is how we understand—and are able to talk about—disability in terms of culture, as an assemblage of voices, bodies and actions within a contingent and shifting social order(ing). Just as Bakhtin (1986) tells us that there is no first speaker, but rather language as coordination over time and amidst utterances in relation, disability can only mean in terms of what we are able to (co)produce it as meaning. In our book, Disability in dialogue (Hughes & Bartesaghi) contributors set out on empirical projects designed to trouble the categories of disability within several cultural frames: geographical settings, diagnostic accounts, political action, crisis events, and everyday occurrences.

Inasmuch as disability is a culture, an ordering of relations and identity projects, of what is and might be possible, of what is historically entrenched and institutionally regulated, then disability is also an intercultural doing. This is the case not merely in the exchanges between a culture of able bodiedness to which disability owes its constitution, but between the multiple and diverse identity positions of those who are incumbent within the culture of disability. These exchanges are dialogic through and through, for they always mirror, borrow, and often oppose each other. In Shotter’s words (2015), these dialogues are occasions for attunement (p. 8) and intercultural betweenness.

Analyzing disability discourses means appreciating dialogic tensions, the centripetal and centrifugal forces at work, the constant interplay between dialogue and monologue. And it means listening to the diverse voices that, as Bakhtin remarked, are everywhere and always in relation.

Download the entire guest post as a PDF.

Hong Kong Polytechnic U: Several Positions (Hong Kong)

“Job2 Positions at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Deadline: Varies by position.

  1. Assistant Professor in Area Studies and Intercultural Communication. Deadline: 2 January 2024.

The Department of English and Communication is now inviting applications for the position of Assistant Professor. Priority will be given to applicants whose research expertise and teaching experience are within the Department’s key research areas, especially on the intersection between culture, language, and professional workplaces. Other areas of specialisation such as Sociolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, and Mixed-Methods Research will also be strongly considered. Experience in teaching languages such as Spanish, French, or German, and European Studies will be a plus.

2. Professor / Associate Professor / Assistant Professor in Bilingualism and Communication. Deadline: 7 November 2023.

The Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies now seeks to strengthen its impact in Bilingualism and Communication as a broadly defined interdisciplinary area of academic studies, in keeping with the latest theoretical frameworks in Corporate Communication that are informed by exemplary business practices in associated industries worldwide. They aspire to develop academic leadership and groom young researchers to excel in Bilingual Corporate Communication (BCC), where “bilingual” is construed as not only distinct varieties of Chinese and English and the associated cultures specific to the local communities, but also other regional languages and cultures (e.g., Japanese and Korean, among others).