Category: Applied ICD

Creative Intercultural Collaboration in the UK Modern Foreign Languages Classroom (UK)

Intercultural Dialogue Pedagogy

McAllister, A., Brandford, V., & Smith, C. (Eds.). (2023). Creative intercultural collaboration in the UK modern foreign languages classroom: The quest for social justice. Journal of Education, Innovation and Communication, 5(1).

This is a special issue of the Journal of Education, Innovation and Communication, featuring “a series of articles which outline approaches to teaching and learning Languages foregrounding collaboration, and in which creativity is fostered and culture is drawn upon.” It’s open access. In addition to the preface, linked above, the articles are:

The language of literacy: Developing student independence and confidence in the MFL classroom through a collaborative approach to literacyby Amy Cragg

Engaging with others to identify areas of learning by Nicholas Mark Page

Improving writing skills with Year 10 French students by Juliette O’Connor

Promoting self-esteem, motivation and creativity through collaborative, pluri-lingual story translations by Amy Flynn

Raising learner motivation through a cultural pen-pal scheme: a collaborative study by Dikshali Shah

Multicultural Music: Cultural Connections Over Time

Applied ICD

Williger, Jonathan. (23 May 2023). From Pomona to Heart Mountain: “La Banda Más Chingón en Wyoming.” Folklife Magazine.

“The cultural and geographic lineage of “La Banda Más Chingón en Wyoming” by No-No Boy with Mariachi Los Broncos is culturally layered and deeply American: a mariachi rendition of a folk-country song about a 1940s Japanese American swing band, composed in Wyoming by the son of a Vietnamese refugee from Nashville performed in Southern California. Brimming with ecstatic energy and righteous anger, the song draws connections between recent waves of migration from Central and South America and the long history of Asian American immigration and the discrimination both groups have experienced once they reached American soil.”

This recording is a great example of combining multiple cultural heritages through music. The article explicitly discusses the parallels between current Latin American migrants to the US, and Japanese Americans during World War II.

Open Call for DEMO (Democracy, Elections, Mentorship, Organizing)

Applied ICD

Open Call for D.E.M.O. – Democracy, Elections, Mentorship, Organizing Programme, European Alternatives, France / Germany / Italy. Deadline: 30 June 2023.

The “D.E.M.O.” programme aims at encouraging and facilitating the active engagement of a wide network of European citizens through both training & hands-on action, in the context of the upcoming 2024 European Elections. They have just launched the open call to identify and select 50 change-makers from at least 8 countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Sweden and others) to participate in the D.E.M.O. programme. Those selected change-makers will receive the necessary tools to re-imagine democracy in their local communities and to encourage democratic participation.

The project will achieve this through a series of eight training sessions: 2 residential and 6 online, accompanied by additional informal skill-sharing sessions, peer-to-peer exchange, mentorship sessions, etc. After the training process, the participants will be encouraged to implement two activities in their local communities that engage other people, based on the skills acquired through the content of the training sessions.

Some of these activities may be participatory art creations, podcasts, videocasts, workshops, lectures, etc. In addition, the project will be presented as part of the programME of significant events around Europe in 2023-2024. “D.E.M.O.” will specifically engage people who often feel underrepresented in their locality and whose voice remains unheard when it is time for political and social decisions, such as women, people of colour, migrants, representatives of the LGBTQI+ community, etc.

The open call is for 50 change-makers with no specific age requirement; who are citizens or residents of the following countries (but not limited to): Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Sweden; and people who want to expand their skills in: community organizing, facilitation, political gatherings, political artistic creation, podcast production, video production.

CERC: Under the Tent (Canada)

Intercultural Dialogue Pedagogy
Under the Tent. Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada.

“Under the Tent is a multimedia storytelling project that explores how individuals experience a sense of belonging or not belonging under the tent of Canadian multiculturalism…The project began in the fall of 2021 with a call to graduate students from across Canada to collaborate with CERC Migration to produce a creative work that investigated multiculturalism…Through a competitive process, a select group of graduate students were invited to receive training support and mentorship to explore their personal experiences with race and diversity in the production of a creative work using a medium of their choice. They were asked to express criticisms and also new thinking on the future possibilities of multiculturalism.”

What is now available online are 17 of the stories presented as short films, sometimes supplemented by photographs and interviews, describing ways in which each of the authors falls “under the tent” of multiculturalism in Canada. These are divided into 3 acts: Act 1: Negotiating barriers, overcoming differences; Act 2: Connections to the past, the journey ahead; and Act 3: Importance of refuge, reconciliation and empowerment. This would be a useful collection to begin a class discussion, and might well serve as inspiration for a class project.

COE: Spaces of Inclusion (EU)

Applied ICD

Community Media Institute. (2018). Spaces of Inclusion – An explorative study on needs of refugees and migrants in the domain of media communication and on responses by community media. Council of Europe.

This report documents an effort to discover the potential of local initiatives, specifically of community media, in responding to the arrival of increasing numbers of migrants and refugees in the EU. One of the goals of the project was “to promote the media’s contribution to intercultural dialogue” (p. 8).

The main research question posed was:

What role do media in general and community media in particular play for (recently arrived) refugees and migrants in response to their particular needs and with regard to their human right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to information?

The majority of participants in the study were those with recent experiences of displacement living in Austria, coming from diverse geographical, social, and professional backgrounds, and the primary research method chosen was ethnographic interviewing. Researchers learned that establishing community media could help in multiple ways, specifically by:

  • bridging language barriers
  • providing a less constrained space for alternative narratives and self-representations as well as for socially recognised positions for refugees and migrants from where they can speak their own voice
  • giving access to knowledge, in particular for coping with the new environment
  • establishing and integrating networks, and
  • accommodating the needs of (language) learners (p. 25).

“Community media appear mostly in form of community radio. The participatory approach to content production leads to the fact that they manage to include marginalised groups and contribute to community development, social inclusion and intercultural dialogue.” (p. 46)

Using Radio for ICD: Common Voices Radio (Germany)

Applied ICD

Common Voices Radio: multilingual Radio for Halle and surroundings, Halle, Germany.

“Common Voices Radio is a radio show made by refugees and migrants in Halle and surroundings. We’ll pick up questions, issues and problems which are relevant for refugees and discuss them on air. Together we want to use the radio as a bridge in order to create a more sympathetic community…Who’s going to support me in case I don’t understand the latest letter from Ausländerbehörde (foreigners‘ registration office)? Where can I find a language course without charge? What do I bring along if I’m invited to a birthday party by German friends? Send us your questions and we’ll answer them on the radio. common-voices@radiocorax.de or find us on Facebook!”

Common Voices Radio was highlighted as an example of good practices by the Council of Europe’s Spaces of Inclusion report.

Planning for Multiculturalism in Architecture

Applied ICD

Anju George. (25 April 2023). Planning For Multiculturalism: The Case For Equity And Justice In Communities. Canada Architecture News.

Intercultural dialogue that provides a platform for authentic dialogue, which engages marginalized people, individually and as a collective force, should normatively take into account critical multiculturalism as a social movement that provides opportunities for minority groups to live together in a diverse society symbolized by mutual respect and understanding.

“Multicultural planning has slowly but steadily been growing in importance. There have been arguments that speak to the failure of multicultural planning advocacy translating into effective multicultural planning practice. Multicultural planning has been discussed with respect to marginalized and/or disenfranchised groups predominantly, but not so much on pluralistic planning pertaining to multi-ethnic groups. As minority groups have often been pushed to the sidelines, inclusive physical and/or spatial planning may actually be the answer to effecting change. But the research on inclusive physical planning within multicultural planning literature is limited at best. The concepts of equity and justice have not been analyzed as much either within the realm of multicultural planning. This article (and my future research) will help to have those discourses within multicultural planning, and can aid in formulating a policy framework for multicultural spaces in Canadian communities than can incorporate the tenets of equity and justice.”

This is an interesting article combining intercultural dialogue with spatial planning that may be of interest to CID followers.

Repair Cafes: Sustainability, Community, Intercultural Dialogue

Applied ICD

Repair Cafés, started in Amsterdam in 2009, now exist around the world, in over 2500 locations.

 

The explicit focus of a repair café is the circular economy (ensuring that objects are repaired rather than turned into trash). At the same time, such efforts build community among those who participate, introducing neighbors who might never have met otherwise. And the result is intercultural dialogue, as evidenced by the offer of a PHD Studentship to study “‘Repair Cafes’ as a way to build translocal networks and communities” at the University for the Creative Arts in the UK.

Using Sports to Start Intercultural Dialogues

Applied ICD

Within the framework of the Sport for One Humanity initiative, established by Turkish Airlines and supported by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), the representatives of selected civil society organizations working on grassroots sport-based projects participated in a five-day capacity building workshop in Madrid, Spain.

By supporting innovative sports-based interventions that foster a culture of peace, mutual understanding, and cooperation, ‘Sport for One Humanity’ affirms the need for intercultural dialogue and diversity in developing solutions to global challenges.

Representing organizations based in Cameroon, India, Kenya, the Republic of North Macedonia, Mexico, the Philippines, Uganda, and Vietnam, the participants were selected from among 600 applications from 83 countries following an intensive competitive process. The series of trainings focused on a diverse range of topics to bolster the organizations’ capacities and enhance their impact, including project design and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, communications and advocacy, as well as resource mobilization, partnerships, and fundraising.

Facilitated Dialogue: An Emerging Field of Museum Practice

Applied ICD

Foteini Venieri. (25 February 2022). Facilitated dialogue: An emerging field of museum practice. EXARC, 2022/1.

Overall, the data collected showed that the project highlighted the importance of intercultural coexistence and communication.

In 2020, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett argued that a museum should be understood as a forum rather than a temple (in Badior, 2020). Venieri takes this as a starting point, and studied ways in which several types of museums could serve to facilitate dialogue. She found that “Recently, science and history museums are initiating facilitated dialogue-based programming to address a variety of present-day issues that affect society at large and/or local communities. As the field of facilitated dialogue-based programmes develops, questions around the aims, techniques, and challenges of such initiatives in museums emerge. This paper explores the theory and practice of facilitated dialogue in science, and history museums as well as its implications for the museum field.”

Badior, Daria. (14 July 2020). Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: “A 21st century museum is a forum not a temple”. LB.ua.