On Monday (Listening) I posted the site of 6 Billion Others. One of the intriguing topics on that site was on nature, and what it means to these different individuals from various parts of the world. Then yesterday in the New York Times, I was struck by an article on Koreans who write Japanese poetry, in spite of the disapproval of their compatriots because of the political history between the two countries. It should not be forgotten that conflicts between cultures are often about power difference rather than cultural difference.

Nevertheless some of these Korean poets and their Japanese colleagues who write with them uncovered interesting and meaningful cultural differences between Korean and Japanese perceptions about nature, about beauty, and about emotion.

An excerpt from Japanese Poetry Persists in Korea, Despite Disapproval

Reiko Yamaguchi, a Japanese hotel manager and another club member, said writing haiku with Koreans had enhanced cultural understanding.

“Japanese and Koreans have different ways of perceiving nature,” she said. “Japanese tend to find maximum beauty when they see cherry flowers falling. Koreans’ hearts exult when the flowers are in full blossom.”

Mr. Rhee agreed: “It’s the same moon. But in haiku, Koreans sing the moon with our heart. To Japanese, our haiku may sound too subjective and hard to understand. Japanese sing the moon with their eye. They prefer realism. Koreans may find their haiku bare and superficial.”

Perhaps poets are especially equipped to appreciate such cultural differences in perception.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research
AFS International

Listening

A colleague recently led me to this beautiful site called 6 Billion Others. Yann Arthus-Bertrand created this project of hundreds of testimonials from individuals all over the world on topics like fear, tears, joy, family, nature, and more. In his own testimonial about the project, he tells of being stranded for 24 hours in a small village where, through his conversations with one man from the villagers, he came away realizing that he had something profound to learn from the experience and outlook of every other person on earth. You can select a photo or a topic and see several people from different parts of the world present their views on this topic. While you hear the person speak, his or her words are also provided as English text.

While each of these testimonies presents an individual's experience and point of view, each also has a cultural context that is often identifiable, and that influences how that person thinks, what each values, and how each presents himself or herself. If you think again of the Five Frameworks of Culture, you can look for the differences in language use, non-verbal behavior, communication style, patterns of thinking (cognitive style), values and assumptions.

AFS Research News

This is a busy time for AFS research. We are finalizing our first report on our 15-country, Long-Term Impact Study. We expect to post this report on our web site sometime in April. If you would like to receive an email notice when it becomes available, please join the AFS research community for our Research Network newsletters.

In the meantime, much of my own time this week will be spent working on a fundraising proposal for research we hope to begin in 2009, and preparing for the Educational Colloquium next month in Paris: See our announcement in the Event Calendar.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

Welcome back to Leo Hitchcock, Guest Blogger from New Zealand.

M-time vs. P-time

Something very odd seems to be happening to me!  Every time think to myself ‘it’s about time I contributed to Intercultural Eyes again’, I look in here to find Betsy has recently written something (Saving Time, March 10 – I am a bit slow!) that coincides with something I’ve just been reading about!  Do we have some ESP going on Betsy? 

I’m currently reading Edward T. Hall’s (1981), Beyond Culture.  Other writers claim that Hall was the first person to use the term ‘intercultural communication’ (in The Silent Language, 1959).  However I think our founder, Stephen Galatti probably beat him to that!, so let’s just say that Hall was the first to introduce the term into scholarly literature.  But, I’m getting off the point…

Hall discusses cultural differences relating to the perception of time.  When I read Betsy’s comments about her brief meetings with special friends while travelling on the train, however train schedules prevented their spending quality time together, Hall’s discussion immediately came back into my mind.  Reverse incidents regarding cultural perceptions of time came to my mind too as I was reading Hall!

Halls calls this monochronic time ('M-time' - everything according to a fixed, linear time schedule) and polychronic time ('P-time' - do things as they naturally occur, or ‘when it feels right’, even though you may be doing many things at once!).  (I don’t like 'monochronic/polychronic', I prefer 'monochronological' time and 'polychronological' time. Bigger words and not ‘chronic’ J.)

Hall explains it like this:  M-time is characterised by scheduling, by doing one task at a time.  Everything is time-dominated, with time so thoroughly woven into the fabric of existence that we are hardly aware of the degree to which it does dominate.  It affects relationships (as Betsy found out), and denies us context.  It permits only a limited number of events in a given time span with important things done first and ‘unimportant’ things done last - or not at all if time runs out!  P-time, on the other hand, is characterised by several things happening at once.  It stresses the involvement of people and complete completion of tasks rather then strict adherence to schedules. In P-time markets and stores, one is surrounded by other customers demanding attention, with no order to who is served next.  The same pattern occurs in governmental agencies, even hospital emergency rooms.

I think this is a very important concept for exchange students about to live and study in a new culture to understand, as it can be a source of frustration, and resistance to cultural adaptation.  When my partner and I travelled in Latin America several years ago, it was probably our first introduction to having to adapt to P-time.  We were not so much ‘frustrated’ or felt ‘resistance’ but we very soon understood that things will happen as they naturally occur, not according to some pre-fixed time on the clock face, so we just decided to ‘go with the flow’.  New Zealand’s indigenous culture, as well as the Pasifika (Pacific Islands) cultures (plural!) are also polychronological, so while it was new to us to experience it first hand, we were not totally unaware of what was happening.  My partner has recently returned from Spain where she attended the wedding of an AFS student we had with us a number of years ago (I couldn’t go - am I jealous or what!).  She commented about some of the TV programs there showing all the ad’s (like 30-odd!) at the end of the program rather than interspersed through the program.  This is an example of P-time.  Hall also mentions this example in his book.

Betsy highlights one of the problems with M-time.  I have a problem with my P-time-oriented Uni students – getting to class at the scheduled time! (Mind you, this problem is not restricted just to P-timers!)

Positive Feelings for Other Cultures

My niece is in love with Ireland: the music, the linen, the pubs, Riverdance, the green hills and quaint houses and even the climate I think. She's given both her children Irish sounding names that, in the USA work reasonably well with the Dutch last name her husband brought to the family.

Allophilia is the name given by Harvard University professor Todd L. Pittinsky for the development of positive feelings toward another culture. He sees this as a necessary approach to overcoming conflict between cultures, preferable to the more "neutral" tolerance that he has observed. You can download his paper on Allophilia and Intergroup Leadership.

Pittinsky mentions the problems for the leaders where such conflict exists, and suggests that the leaders might want to emphasis commonalities as an interim step towards a strategy of allophilia. Milton Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity proposes that the "Minimizaton" of cultural differences is a necessary step toward acceptance and adaptation. Most of our exchange program participants and alumni are likely to focus on the similarities between cultures rather than the differences.

From the research on the AFS students from 2002 by Mitchell Hammer (you can down load the "Educational Results" study reports from Hammer's study here) and our newer research that surveyed our alumni from 1980-86, we learned that many of our students and alumni are already in love with their host countries. This may have all the benefits of Pittinsky's allophilia, but we also see that for some, this comes with a sufficiently negative and cynical view of their own culture compared with other cultures that one wonders if they can be an effective bridge between the cultures, regardless of how happy they are to feel included in the other culture.

I can recall how some 25 or 30 or so years ago I felt the burden of anti-Americanism stemming from a number of US foreign policies and action that were not so appreciated in other countries. When traveling to Europe, I hoped not to be recognized as American, as I thought my own culture would get in the way of my being accepted. I tried to look European, to "pass" in another culture. In the course of these travels I also met with friends who of course knew my nationality. I cannot even remember which president I was apologizing for to my French friends but I do remember the gist of their reply: "Don't worry about it," they assured me. "Our president is just as idiotic as yours. It can't be helped." It can be enormously freeing to recognize that human failings exist in all cultures.

While my niece's love of Ireland is easily accepted by her American friends, this would not be true if the two cultures were in conflict. One simply cannot fathom a Palestinian man who is in love with Jewish traditions, who gives his sons Hebrew names because he thinks they sound charming. Should such a person exist, it's hard to see how he could be a leader in the quest for peace between these two cultures. What credibility could he have with his own cultural group? How could he encourage others to see things his way?

On St. Patrick's Day, anyone can be Irish, but many of us in the USA can trace our roots to some Irish immigrants. Years ago I also went to Ireland for a SIETAR conference and found it quite moving to see the ruins of small stone cottages of the many, many Irish who left that country, more than decimating its population at the time of the potato famine. The historical accounts of the potato famine and the Irish emigration have obvious parallels with the desperate and forced migrations of people around the world today who risk their lives and give everything they have in hopes of basic survival, but information like this doesn't help me imagine the experience from the eyes of the Irish in the middle of the 19th century. What helps is to reflect on the unique history, culture, and beliefs about the world that surrounded this experience. It is the stories that bring another person's experience alive.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

Saving Time

This weekend I lost an hour. At least this is how I think of it. In the United States, most of us shifted the time on our clocks one hour forward for daylight savings time. So it seemed appropriate to address this issue to cultural concepts of time, including daylight savings time. What time are we trying to save? and for what?

Recently while riding the subway home from work, I happened to see a friend of mine, a person I have known for years, a person I truly care about. And yet, because he was getting off the train and I was getting on, we barely had time to greet each other, to smile and say "good to see you." Neither of us seemed to think that this unexpected meeting should cause us to miss our next train, to be late getting home to our partners, or to change what we had planned.

Some years ago, I also happened to meet a friend on the train, traveling in my direction to work -- again, someone I hadn't seen for a while. We spoke briefly for a few minutes, then she apologized, "You'll have to excuse me. I always read the paper on the train, and I need this time alone with my newspaper." I also had a newspaper in my briefcase, so after this, we continued to ride together, separately reading the same newspaper, only to say "good bye" to each other when one of us left the train.

These scenes on the train would be quite different had I run into my Iranian friend. Suddenly the priorities shift, practically automatically. What good luck that we would have, to run into each other just by chance! Best to take advantage of it, to catch up on our news, to understand how each of us is, to wish each other well. And because of this unexpected opportunity, I'd quickly let the train go on without me, knowing that there will be another in 10 minutes or less. And I would certainly leave my newspaper in my briefcase. But I still would not shift my schedule enough to, say leave the station to stop for a coffee. I have my other plans and commitments that I must keep, and being "on time" is part of that. On the other hand, my Iranian friend, who is easily "on time" for a morning run in the park on Saturday morning, places his priority more on these chance encounters and events which mean that the day's planned schedule is less and less close to reality as the day wears on. When I've invited him to dinner parties, he has seldom arrived within the first two hours. But he always comes.

Where do we learn to be prompt?

Lessons from childhood can be quite powerful. My very prompt husband remembers that his father kicked his bed every morning to make sure he got up in time and ready for school. Such a message could not be ignored. My daughter may remember the games we played to get her up and ready and "on time" for school. 

My own father was not always so prompt. He frequently got involved deeply in his work and would call home to say that he'd "lost track of time" and though he would be leaving now, he was going to be late for dinner. I would be sitting at the window, watching with my mother for my father's car to come home. Dinner was supposed to be ready when he got home, and usually it was keeping warm, or "getting ruined" because he was late.

The idea that "people are waiting for you" is strong and is part of the social commitment that many of us in the USA grew up with. This, of course, is the kind of commitment that pulls me to be prompt now. Like my father, I sometimes do get involved in my work. A project I begin at 4:30 almost never ends at 5:00 when it is time to go home. I like to get the project finished before I leave. So I am not always prompt either. My husband is almost always home from work first, and starts the dinner. Like I remember with my mother, I have seen him watching for me from the window sometimes as I come home. The salads may be already made, waiting for me. He is waiting for me. The evening is short, always and it is this "expected" opportunity that calls me much more strongly than the unplanned opportunity of a chance encounter.

I'm not sure that the "future" orientation I've described will continue to be characteristic of U.S. culture, at least at the social and personal level. The near universal use of cell phones, text messages and "twitters" may be changing how and whether "people are waiting for you" in our society, especially among the young and single. My suspicion is that the USA is, with the advent of instant communication, becoming less tied to our planned schedules and more open to last minute invitations and chance encounters in our social lives, though perhaps while still demanding rapid service in business and consumer areas. I'd like to hear more about how technology may be changing other cultures as well.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

East is West

When I lived briefly in India and watched the nightly Doordarshan news broadcasts on television, I was baffled for a while about the West Asian peace conferences that were going on at the time. What was going on in West Asia? I wondered. I don't remember when it dawned on me that what I had always known as the "Middle East" was, in fact, West Asia. How perfectly sensible that in India, where Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon are most closely to the West, the region is given a more geographically accurate description! And since I supposed that the world had agreed somehow that the line separating Europe and Asia that runs through the Red Sea and the Bosphorous and then runs up somewhere along the ridges of the Urals mountains, I thought I should start a campaign to rename the "Middle East" -- a vestige, I supposed, of the British Empire's renaming of the world -- to the more technically correct "West Asia."
 
But now I see two problems with this:

#1 Other than the substantially large number of Indians who would already understand, within my own cultural context in the USA, most people would not immediately connect the familiar problems and debates about the Middle East with any discussion about West Asia. (See What is an Entrée? below.)

#2 I'm no longer sure that there is any worldwide agreement on the definition of continents.

How Many Continents does Earth Have?

When AFS Switzerland hosted our World Congress in 1996, our organization there created a lovely logo for the Congress, to be used on the folders, T-shirts, banners and so on. The logo included a circular shape encompassing five colors: one for each continent.

Five continents? I was taught there are seven! It seems that the Swiss put North and South America together as "America" while in North America, we separate them into two continents, and we count Antarctica as a continent as well, though we don't expect to start exchange programs there any time soon.

What is Western?

Lately I have been twice surprised by Belgians who were preparing research projects that included the view that South America is "non-Western." Even though I have been taught that it is a separate continent, I have also been taught that it is in the Western Hemisphere, and with the history of the Americas colonized largely by England, Spain, Portugal, France, and even the Netherlands, there is certainly a strong European influence all over our one or two continents.

These same Belgians were also surprised by my remarks that, as I felt my own US culture might lie in between Europe and South America on some dimensions. They had been certain that the US culture was clearly closer to Europe than it was to the "non-Western" cultures of South America.

I remember a discussion I had with a Mexican woman living in Belgium, who found her European surroundings very unfamiliar. However, stopping over in the USA on her way home, she told me she felt "halfway home" culturally in the USA. I understood her completely. The adjustments I make in my trips to Europe are quite different from those I make in Latin America. Or, I might say, I am misunderstood very differently in Europe than I am in South America.

What is an Entrée?

I give this example just to show how impossible it is to change established language use, even to "correct" it.

Anyone who knows French will recognize that "entrée" would be an entrance, a beginning, or what the British would call a "starter" on a menu at a restaurant. Why is this not true in the United States?

I have often wondered who was that very influential restaurant owner in the USA who wanted to give his restaurant more elegance, or to connect his cuisine (also a French word, of course) a French flavor? Whoever he was who first labeled the main course "Entrée" has forever changed the meaning of the word in the United States. Today, even a truly French restaurant in the USA would have to think twice about labeling the appetizer as "Entrée" because virtually all the customers will be expecting it to be the main course.

As we say in the United States: Some food for thought.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

Getting comfortable with differences

In thinking about the results of the research conducted with AFS by Mitchell Hammer a few years ago, I was struck by two different outcomes.

1. When they return home from their experience, AFS students show a much lower level of social discomfort, anxiety, and embarrassment around other cultures than they had before they went abroad.
   
2. The returned students generally focused more on cultural similarities and some worried that paying attention to cultural differences would lead to conflict. In the words of one student:

"Ya que en el mundo en que vivimos, las diferencias culturales son inmensas, y es por eso que existe tanta violencia -- las personas no ven las similitudes, y el hecho de que todos somos iguales." ("In the world we live in, the cultural differences are huge and that is why there is so much violence -- people don’t see the similarities and the fact that we are all the same.")

This leads me to ask:

• Are these returning students more comfortable around other cultures because they focus on the similarities instead of the differences?

and

• Is this always a good thing?

and

Why should differences cause conflict?

Maybe this is the most interesting question. If we believe that differences inevitably cause conflict, how would we behave? In the USA we have an expression: "like walking on egg shells" -- the idea being that you need to tread very carefully for fear of breaking the delicate shell.

With this philosophy, any mention of differences can be dangerous, reminding the other person of the conflict we have, because... you know, because we're different. So maybe if we focus only on the ways we are similar, nothing bad will happen.

Another expression we use in the US: "You have to break some eggs to make an omelet."

When we introduced the Five Frameworks of Culture we followed Bennett's order; building trust by talking first about less threatening differences such as language use or non-verbal behavior, and then moving to on to talk about differences that might feel more threatening to consider, like values and assumptions.

Assumptions about love and marriage and family

What could be MORE threatening that looking at cultural differences in love, marriage and family. This is interesting because, first of all, we often tend to assume that these are universals. Everyone has the experience of falling in love, every society has marriage, all societies include families. True or False?

Let's look at some different reactions to these topics in different places, both of which surprised me.

India. Back in the early 1990s, while I was doing research in India, almost a young woman told me: "I'm happy to have my parents help in finding a husband. It's such an important decision." She mentioned how much her parents has always looked out for her best interests, and how well they understood her nature and would be able to select the right boy. Another woman told me, "I always wanted a love-match, but it didn't happen, so I was grateful that my brother was able to help me find my husband." I also carry with me still the image of the young Punjabi fiancés, meeting for the third time at a party normally designed as a celebration to tease the bride before her wedding. In this more modern couple, the groom-to-be was allowed to attend, and in fact sang a song for the bride while she danced. Was it only me who felt the chemistry  between them beginning to build with their smiles and blushes?

Contrast this with a situation familiar to me in the USA. It was about 5 years ago that I decided to marry again, and I brought my future husband to meet my mother. Thinking perhaps an "old fashioned" approach might be appropriate, he asked my mother for her approval of our decision. "Why are you asking me?" she replied. "I think it should be up to Betsy."

Where was anything in my background ready to expect the reactions of these Indian women who found comfort and even great pleasure in their arranged marriages? I suppose when I went to India, I imagined that the arranged marriage was "still" common, thinking perhaps that this was something that would eventually change to a more "western" pattern with time. And yet I related the "arranged" marriage with tragic stories from my own traditions, such as Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. For anyone who does not know, Juliet's family was arranging a marriage for her with the County Paris, someone they felt suitable, but she, of course, had fallen in love with Romeo, her family's enemy, and in the end the two lovers killed themselves.

Peru. Love is not always kind and marriage does not always mean living happily ever after. I don't intend to imply that marriage is any less successful in Peru than any place else, but the way this may play out was what surprised me. Walking down the street in Lima one evening, I observe two women fighting in front of me. They are yelling and striking each other. One justifies herself: "She was with my husband." Another woman I knew, suspecting her husband was with another woman, went directly to that woman's home, found him there and dragged him home so she could then kick him out of the house. "I would kill to keep my husband," she told me. Then there was the case of a jealous ex-novia who telephoned the new girlfriend, repeatedly, to talk endlessly about the situation and what the relationship had meant to her.

Again, I had stories from my own traditions that got in the way of my interpretations and made these situations quite uncomfortable. Wasn't it supposed to the two men fighting each other over a woman, like Popeye and his nemesis Bluto (sometimes Brutus) from television cartoons, fighting over Olive Oyl? And more than anything else, I felt embarrassed for the women and wondered --

• "Where is her pride?"

and

• "Why does she put up with him?"

and 

• "What can she hope to achieve by this?"

-- all questions that are clearly irrelevant in the cultural sub-context in which these women live.

What was more helpful was again to reinterpret the behavior without the cartoon and to recognize that I was seeing was a way to use a large dramatic gesture to assert their rights in their relationships. The fact that others witness this gesture can make it more powerful: Love overcomes pride.

Whether the stories from your own tradition are as revered as Shakespeare or as modest as a Popeye cartoon, the ones that you hear repeatedly, perhaps particularly when you are young, can be enormously powerful and will influence your reactions to anything you experience that remotely resembles the story line. By identifying these influential stories that led to my reactions, I can then try to remove the story context and look again at the behavior I observe.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International

A big "Thank You" and welcome to my guest blogger, Leo Hitchcock from New Zealand, pictured here with a former AFS student that he had hosted. Leo is currently researching the assessment of intercultural competence. His reactions to the Intercultural Eyes blogs seem to call for a bigger space than the semi-hidden "comment" boxes. Here is Leo's first full posting.

                                                                                                                               Betsy Hansel

The significance of language, social networks, and food to study abroad sojourners

I read with interest Betsy’s language posts, and thought I’d share with you data from some readings I have recently completed along with some thoughts.

Language is central to human communications, therefore host language proficiency is assumed to be one of the most important determinants of successful cultural adaptation [1].  It is considered ‘cultural capital’, and is a source of status and power for study abroad students (sojourners) [2].  Sojourners who expected to speak the host language but had low language skills, interpreted unwillingness on the part of the hosts to speak in return as exclusion from the local culture! [1].  

Learning and speaking in another language can present challenges to a person’s sense of themselves, as this quote illustrates: 

In order to be a wit in a foreign language you have to go through the stage of being a half-wit – there is no other way. If the problem is not addressed explicitly, learners may be just aware of it as a constant resistance against opening their mouths! [3].

To learn a new language is to create a new identity, as it is the principle process by which identity formation takes place [1, 4].  Eva Hoffman, a Polish 13 year old who moved to live in Canada, and struggled with whether to write her diary in English or Polish remarks;

This language is beginning to invent another me.  However I discover something odd.  It seems that when I write (or for that matter, think) in English, I am unable to use the word ‘I’.  I do not go so far as the schizophrenic ‘she’, but am driven, as by a compulsion, to the double, the Siamese-twin ‘you’ [4].

One is drawn into the interactive nature of language and culture, going beyond mere structure and grammatical rules, and learning to unravel the inner meaning of the language that leads to refining and extending one’s knowledge of the culture.  The educational implication is an imperativeness to become a sensitive user of the other language, which includes recognition that a different language can lead to a different way of expressing or experiencing oneself [4].
But there is a paradox [1].  As sojourners become adapted they often find difficulties around language, with the result that the more culturally adjusted they become, the more they tend to feel excluded!  While high language skills provide for a deeper level of communication it does not automatically facilitate cultural adjustment.  Instead, it brings one into an ambiguous realm where neither host nor sojourner is clear of the extent of fluency, with hosts treating them either as unable to speak the language, or expecting native-like fluency, treating mistakes as deliberate and insulting. Neither attitude encourages cultural adjustment.  Deeper involvement with the host culture entails a different ‘cultural logic’ that has been recognised as the most challenging level within cross-cultural encounters, sometimes producing negative attitudes to the host culture (Culture Shock!) [5].  All sojourners that were researched encountered this at some stage, but those with higher language proficiency brought it on sooner and had higher expectations of being able to deal with it [1].

Recognition of intercultural competence, however, need not include a corresponding learning of a foreign language for those who do not have a second language component in their sojourn [6].  If a second language were a prerequisite to gaining intercultural competence, how would a sojourner ever achieve it if their sojourn was to a culture that speaks the same language, yet may be substantially different culturally (for example Spain/Spanish speaking Latin American countries; New Zealand and Australia/English speaking North America).  Notwithstanding the obvious significance of the adaptive demands of language as an important element of attaining intercultural competence, intercultural competence can certainly be attained without it.

Social networks play a major role in determining how a person interprets and responds to their new environment.  Three social network types have been identified: monocultural (your own culture), bicultural (the host culture), and multicultural (other foreigners in the host culture) [7].  Additionally, contact with home family and friends is another social network that places demands on the sojourner [1]. 

Movement from left to right across the networks represents adjustment away from the sojourner’s reliance on home, and increases the number and closeness of host culture ties.

Willingness to accept change in social relationships is essential for adjustment to another culture [8].  Relationships formed within the host culture social network results in the sojourner feeling part of the host culture.  Such relationships must develop beyond the superficial level, be of equal status, satisfy the needs of individuals, and be free from discrimination and negative attitudes [1].

And food has been shown to be of central importance in developing and maintaining social intercultural relationships [9].  Changing one’s food preferences is a conscious expression of changing identity.  Since food and its associated rituals embody a culture’s values [10], the sojourner’s reactions often indicate the extent they understand and appreciate their host culture’s core cultural values, and are an important part in participating in the culture.  Rejection of the local culture’s food seems like rejection of the local culture!

All of this is based on solid research of study abroad students, and I believe are very important notions to become aware of and become familiar with within the pre-departure preparation stage.

References:
[1] Pearson-Evans, Aileen; 2006, Recording the Journey: Dairies of Irish Students in Japan. In Michael Byram & Anwei Feng, (Eds), Living and Studying Abroad: Research and Practice.  Multilingual Matters Ltd,Clevedon, U.K.
[2] Kim, 1988, in [1]
[3] Harder, 1980: 269. In [4]
[4] Alred, Geof; 2003, Becoming a Better Stranger: A Therapeutic Perspective on Intercultural Education and/as Education. In Geof Alred, Mike Byram, & Mike Fleming (Eds), Intercultural Experience and Education.  Multilingual Matters Ltd,Clevedon, U.K.
[5]  Condon, 1974, in [1]
[6] Zarate, Genevìeve; 2003, The Recognition of Intercultural Competences: From individual to certification. In Geof Alred, Mike Byram, & Mike Fleming (Eds), Intercultural Experience and Education.  Multilingual Matters Ltd,Clevedon, U.K.
[7] Bochner et al, 1986, in [1]
[8] Anderson, 1994: Kim, 1988; in [1]
[9] Bourdieu, 1986; Fischler, 1988; in [1]
[10] Douglas, 1966: Levi-Strauss, 1968; in [1]

After our staff training in Istanbul last September, I found a new interest in Istanbul and Turkey. So recently my daughter gave me a copy of Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book, which I am now reading. I happened to turn to the "afterward" by translator Maureen Freely, and I want to thank her for giving me this insight into the Turkish language:

There is no verb to be in Turkish, nor is there a verb to have. It's an agglutinative language, which means that root nouns in even the simplest sentences can carry five or six suffixes. ("Apparently, they were inside their houses" is a single word.) There are many more tenses--you use one mode for events you have witnessed with your own eyes, for example, and another for anything you know by hearsay. There is a special syllable you can add to a verb to emphasize the active role someone played in whatever you are describing. The passive voice is as graceful as the active voice and rather more popular, with the result that a fine Turkish sentence may choose to obscure exactly who did what. (from the Vintage International Edition, 2006)

To learn Turkish, I certainly would need to adjust my thinking, and so I marvel at the work Ms. Freely has done with this book. After reading the "afterward" I needed to go back to different passages and reconsider how they might have been constructed in the original Turkish. And in doing this I connected more with the mindset of the main character and the character that he is pursuing and imitating.

So often we are dependent on interpreters, and I am grateful for those who are able to do this. We are now working with a small group of AFS staff from several countries, trying to learn together how to interpret our own cultures to each other so that our behaviors, values and beliefs make sense to each other. Tonight (in New York, but already tomorrow in Hong Kong, India and New Zealand) we will have our first conference call for this "seminar." It is an experiment I hope will succeed.

On a related note: in Issue 10 I talked about some research on language learning through study abroad. Both studies I cited can be found in Barbara F. Freed's book, Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context.(Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1995).

 Learning a Language and Learning a Culture

The research that Mitchell Hammer conducted with AFS students in 2002 included a very simple measure of language facility provided by the host family at the beginning of the experience and again after the students returned home at the end of their year. (For a summary of the results of this study, please go to the AFS Research and Education section of the AFS web site where versions of "Assessment of the Impact of Study Abroad Experience" can be found in English, Spanish or Portuguese.) This language rating by host families turned out to be an important one.

• We found that the host families who rated their students as more fluent also tended to rate them as having a better knowledge of the host culture.
• Students who stayed with the same host family all year tended to be given higher fluency ratings by those host families.
• Japanese students were assessed by their families as having the greatest improvement in language ability over the course of the year.
• Students who felt more comfortable and confident around other cultures also tended to have higher fluency ratings from their host families.

We discussed this last outcome extensively. Was it that the ease of language use made the students more comfortable and confident with people from other cultures, or did more confident students become more fluent simply because they were not afraid to use the language? Or, since he research also showed that this comfort and confidence around other cultures increased strongly (and anxiety declined) as a result of the AFS program, was it simply a case that both are related to participation in the program?

I tend to favor the interpretation that the sense of confidence these students have makes them unconcerned about making mistakes, and leads them to focus on building their communication skills through conversation. The host families are more likely to report that they are speaking with greater fluency because they have had deep and meaningful conversations with these students. No one is really assessing whether they have properly used the subjunctive case.

Linguists, of course, are much more interested in the appropriate use of the subjunctive and other forms specific to the language. Barbara Lafford's research among students learning Spanish shows that those who studied abroad were better than classroom learners in using many of the appropriate subtle conversational cues and patterns that are necessary for real communication with another person. She found that they had picked up more of the social context of their conversations and could "improvise" a conversation better than those who only studied in the classroom. They also stumbled less and sounded more like native speakers. Even those who had been beginner seemed to be able to gain much of this competence through study abroad experiences.

Vera Regan made an interesting study of how students in the classroom and those studying abroad differ in their use of the French form "ne....pas" and related forms of negation, as found in Piaf's "Pink Martini" song ("Je ne veux pas travailler") that for some reason seems to be played these days in New York restaurants, and can be found in multiple forms on You-Tube. As I learned as an exchange student in France, native French speakers will often drop the "ne" part of the two-part construction when speaking to each other, so that "je ne sais pas" can become something like "chai pas" with very casual speech, the way in English one might say "dunno" instead of "I don't know." Regan's research found that the study abroad students in France picked this up quite readily and were more likely to drop the "ne" than those who had studied the proper form in the classroom. On the other hand, when native speakers of French knew that someone was monitoring their speech, they were more likely to use the "correct" form, while the study abroad speakers were not so likely to self-correct to a more formal speech, even when they knew their speech was being monitored.

It seems that maybe we're more than half way there with the language learning. We know that our students become more confident and more fluent with the learning by experience and they clearly sound more fluent. However, as they imitate more the casual styles of speech that they use with their friends and host families, they may need some classroom instruction or maybe just some additional feedback to help them shift appropriately to more formal speech when this is expected.

I'm certainly going to be watching my own tendency to drop the "ne" and hope that I can self-correct when needed.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research

AFS International  

Learning from Each Other

In recent weeks, my husband is spending hours in front of the computer using special software to learn French. He's doing this because in April I will be attending an intercultural education conference in Paris sponsored by our AFS organization there, and he is coming along. (See notice in Event Calendar) He likes the program's technique of using mental images related to English as a way to remember French words, and he is having fun making up sentences that might or might not be of much use to him in France.

One of the challenges of learning a language is finding someone to talk to. Last November, the BBC reported on a case in Mexico of an indigenous language that is about to go extinct since the last two speakers of that language have refused to talk to each other. (See story from the BBC)

Fortunately for my husband, in addition to his efforts to speak with me in French, he will find plenty of people with whom to practice French, even without leaving the computer. An interesting social networking site, italki.com, helps match you with someone with whom you can practice your foreign language. This and other language learning resources have been posted on the AFS web site's Useful Resources list for Educators.

Yesterday I came across an old interview in New Scientist on line with Steven Pinker. (See full interview.) He talked about theories of the origin of language in humans, and the fact that, unlike some birds, say, humans aren't born speaking but have to learn speech. He said, "Learning is an essential part of language because by its very nature language has to be a shared code. If you spoke a language of one you might as well not speak at all. The learning period synchronises the language ability of each child to that of everyone else around them."

Language is not the only thing that we learn better together; maybe we learn everything better in a community. What would I know without my colleagues here at AFS, for instance? For example, one of them led me to an article about different types of intelligence, which led me to a very exciting but not so new article on The social/situational orientation to learning by Mark K. Smith, and his article collects and reviews the thoughts of several other educators, including Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. What all these educators, anthropologists, and colleagues have discerned is that learning is not really an individual activity, but one that requires the input of others, and generally requires a community.

AFS intends to expand that community and promote intercultural education. While our exchange programs physically place a person in a community within another culture, we also want to use our worldwide community to teach each other, and to teach our exchange program participants, how to develop a broader set of social skills that are flexible enough to adapt to unfamiliar contexts and cultures. This includes the Five  Frameworks of Culture that we have adopted from Milton Bennett, and it includes the nurturing of an openness to things that are unfamiliar and unknown.

I invite you, the readers, to also contribute to the learning by leaving your comments on any of the topics you read here, or to leave messages which I will answer promptly.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Intercultural Education and Research, AFS International.

Why do you communicate with someone?

Which of these purposes is most important?

• Convey information
• Show how you feel about your relationship
• Create a good impression
• Convey respect for the other person
• Reach agreement
• Maintain harmony
• Make the other person feel happy
• Maintain the other person’s interest
• Make sure the other person is comfortable and not embarrassed by the conversation.

The style you use to communicate with another person depends a great deal on how you answered this question, but it’s always about the nature of the relationship with the other person and the cultural conventions that shape that relationship. Is there a difference in status or rank in your relationship? Are relationships compartmentalized so that you have different relationships for different activities or areas of interest? Are you from the same or different cultural background?

It is not surprising that the intercultural field includes many whose training is in the area of communications. The way people communicate with each other does quite frequently vary with culture, and communicating across cultures is also different than within a culture. Some of this was touched on in the January 8 issue on humor.

One of the most frequently noted differences in communication style is the contrast between direct and indirect communication. The U.S. culture is often seen as tending to be more direct in its communication, but many cultures will use a direct approach for giving information. Malaysian and Japanese cultures may typically place a higher value on an indirect approach to save “face” and avoid expressing something that could cause the other person to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, but even in the U.S., people often try an indirect approach when they are worried about how their communication will be received. Another communication style difference frequently noted is the contrast between those who express emotion while communicating and those who are restrained in expressions of emotion. Here the Italians might be seen as more emotive in the communication and the British as restrained.

Mitch Hammer has developed a intercultural conflict styles inventory that looks at these two dimensions of difference and helps people identify their preferred style of communication when dealing with conflict. It’s a very interesting instrument, as it touches on areas of difference that can cause misunderstanding.

• Receiving communication that is too direct feels like criticism.
• Communication that is too indirect may not be received at all, or may seem deceptive.
• Emotionally restrained communication can sound as if you do not care.
• Emotionally expressive communication can sound as if you are out of control.

It’s useful to see how your communication might be misinterpreted, and to see how you may be misinterpreting others as well. I have taken the inventory several times, and each time I learn something, and each time result is different. Each time I’m focused on a different type of conflict, involving a different relationship and a different issue. Sometimes I think about the communication I would want to receive; sometimes I think about the communication I’m comfortable giving.

I can’t say that this shows an enormous ability on my part to code switch between cultural styles of communication; it’s probably rather huge ambivalence about conflict in general. But there are also many times when I feel it is so important to save face and times when I want to be able to show how important I feel the relationship is, or how much the issue is tied up with my own sense of self. Sometimes I really want to work through an intermediary who can plead my case and make my explanations for me. I’m not sure I ever do this well.

Sheila Heen, the author of the communications self-assessment tool embed below has created a communication style template based on their research of successful communication about difficult issues within the context of U.S. cultural norms. When I took the quiz, my results revealed that I should try to be more direct and that I should prepare more for having difficult conversations, and included some detailed advice on how I might do this.

The existence of this tool proposes that communication style is something that can be taught and deliberately used in a particular context. So, it may well be that even if I am less than perfect in the communication style seen as typical of the USA, those coming from other cultures might use this quiz to learn how to adjust their communication style to deal with a difficult issue they have with a colleague from the USA. Just don’t expect your U.S. counterpart to conform perfectly to the “Have the talk America” style.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Research, AFS International

On December 10, 2007 I reported on an article in Intercultures, an online Canadian magazine, that focused on cultural differences in cognitive style, or patterns of thinking.

My husband recently led me to this item.

I'm not a fan at all of the title "hard-wiring" since it implies something immutable and not learned patterns. Contrary to the title, the research that is reported shows different "training" of the brain in different cultures and documents different ways of thinking about an experience through the intensity of activity in different parts of the brain in individuals from different cultures.

Most interesting for AFS is the suggestion of the researchers that perhaps brain patterns change with an exposure to another culture. "There's a hint that six months in a culture already changes you," he said, referring to psychological, rather than neurological, research. "It suggests that there's a lot of flexibility."

Bettina Hansel

Director of Research, AFS Intercultural Programs

Cultural Assumptions on Health

Thinking about the video clips of Jacques Tati and Rowan Atkinson from the last issue of this blog reminded me of how much of an intercultural experience involves physical reactions. The research we have done with Mitch Hammer using the Intercultural Development Inventory has brought home the fact that we often tend to minimize cultural differences by focusing largely on how, deep down, all human beings are the same. Yes, we are all physically similar, but how differently do we care for our bodies? I was struck recently at how, in spite of globalization, a pharmacy in another culture, for instance, feels foreign and familiar at the same time. Shelves of products to heal and soothe, to care for our bodies, a pharmacist who knows the drugs and will listen as you describe your symptoms, and yet the packaging is different from place to place. A minor difference or one with more importance?

I seem to always find myself in a pharmacy when traveling, though I don't always find what I am looking for. A hair brush, in Groningen, for instance. Or nail clippers, in Andalucia. Or perhaps it was deodorant, someplace else. Essential components of U.S. personal hygiene are not always found in pharmacies, though my first instinct is to start there. And should I have a cough or a sore throat or an allergic rash, I will always go the pharmacy and ask to speak with the pharmacist, and typically I come away with an unfamiliar-looking medicine.

Cultural differences in how we care for our bodies and deal with illness are often larger than we might assume, and our attachments to our particular cultural patterns are frequently very strong. My experiences of illness as a child were not extreme, but the special tray by my bedside and the Jello, toast, tea, cola or ginger ale I was served when my stomach was upset have become equated with a quiet, comfortable convalescence. Once while in Brazil I became very ill and unable to keep any food in my system. The friends I was staying with lovingly cared for me, but with a very different set of ingredients, all quite unexpected and some, like the boldo tea, were quite horrible, I thought. What I craved so much was a cola or a ginger ale, and only this, it seemed, would cure me. I had to explain my strange medical beliefs to my friends, who chided themselves for not having thought of my customs, and quickly provided the needed beverage. Within a day, I was again able to eat, to take a walk, to go to the beach.

I have been lucky with my health generally, but I have seen enough illness to realize that no culture is entirely successful in its remedies. I have my own faith, somewhat shaky at times, in "western" medicine, but this doesn't explain the documented power of the placebo against which all new medicine is tested, or my belief that I needed a cola to relieve my stomach distress.

According to the schema of the 5 Frameworks that we've been using, encountering cultural differences in values and assumptions can be dramatically more difficult emotionally or more threatening to individuals, and can lead to defensiveness. I was recently talking with a colleague from Hong Kong who has lived in the United States for several years. She was fighting a cold and we were discussing the Chinese medicine she uses. She told me that it typically works for her, but never works for her American friends. But this time, the Chinese medicine wasn't working for her, either. We wondered if there was a relation to the diet and the effectiveness of the medicine. Maybe Chinese medicine needs to work with a Chinese diet. But maybe it's also the cultural assumptions we carry about what is effective, and what we believe will work.

In the meantime, my colleague gave me some of her Chinese cough drops to deal with my cold and sore throat. They worked very well for me.

Understanding (or Not) Humor Across Cultures

How often have you sat smiling while a friend from another culture explains the humor of the joke he has just told, which you did not understand? Or, more likely, you understood what was told, but didn't find it funny. Perhaps you even found it offensive.

And yet humor can frequently be disarming, which is just the hope of Sayed Kashua, an Israeli-born Arab who has created a television show that hopes to ease tension between Jews and Palestinians through its humor. As reported in the New York Times, the show may be appealing to the Jewish audience, but  Straddling Cultures, Irreverently, in Life and Art also underscores the difficult and sometimes dangerous path that Sayed Kashua has taken. As Mira Anwar Awad, an actress in the TV show, states in the clip from the show on the Times web site and on You-Tube, "When you want to criticize something, bring it in a joke and it stings the most." Jokes about other cultures and cultural differences are told in many countries, most often attributing some foolish behavior or absurd belief or assumption to the other culture.

Appreciating humor is highly dependent on your understanding of the cultural context where the humor originated. Understanding the language is usually required, but even a good understanding of the language is generally not enough to make you laugh. Many jokes fall into one of several standard patterns established by the culture in which they emerged, and much depends on the listener's familiarity with the formula. In the USA, children's humor is often in the form of riddles, and a well-used formula is the "Knock-Knock" joke. (To which the listener must reply, "Who's there?") An adult joke in the USA could easily begin with "A man walks into a bar..." A series of Russian jokes depends on knowledge about some characters from famous movies: Chapaev (based on a real national hero from the times of the October Revolution and the Civil War in the 1920s), or Schtirlitz (a fictional character from a very popular movie in the 1970s) and other characters from these movies are found in jokes called anecdotes. This is difference in language use between cultures: the formulas for telling a joke.

Non-verbal behavior is used extensively in comedy. Some more memorable examples can be found in this restaurant clip from Jacques Tati's film Les Vacances de M Hurlot. Watch this clip and pay special attention to the non-verbal behaviors shown. The humor typically depends on understanding the expected behavior and how much the behavior shown by some of the characters deviates from this expectation. Keep in mind that non-verbal behavior includes such things as dress or tone and volume of voice. While the French humor in this film may seem understandable to many, it's interesting to note that several French films in recent years have been reproduced as US movies, shifting not only the language but the cultural context and, to some extent, changing the humor to suit US audience expectations. Similarly, although the USA and the UK share a language, British comedian Rowan Atkinson's portrayal's of Mr Bean and other characters have never been particularly successful in the United States yet have been wildly popular in many countries where English is not spoken, as pointed out in the New York Times article, Mr. Bean Bumbles on Voyage Across Pond. Rowan Atkinson relies on a similar type of physical humor and similar subject matter as Jacques Tati, but both depend on their own cultural traditions and contexts.

I've often remarked about how PowerPoint is a culturally specific way of thinking, and the structures provided such as . . .

. . . demonstrate a particular way of organizing information. Even more so are the structured content assistants that suggest how to use PowerPoint to deliver bad news, to make a sale, to explain something, etc. So I was very grateful to Cathy Moore's "Making Change" blog for pointing out this humorous Clemens Kogler video that takes an absurd chain of relationships and PowerPoint charts to explain the meaning of everything. While the humor will not translate to every culture, this is probably a very good example of US humor based on the context of "how we think" - a spoof on the cognitive style embedded in the structures of PowerPoint.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Research, AFS Intercultural Programs

 Generational Cultures: Some personal reflections

I am taking off work this week for a different kind of intercultural experience. I am spending significant time with my mother. The last time I visited her we helped her put together a scrap book with a collection of various things she had considered important and had saved for so many years. There was an advertisement from the automobile dealership where her father worked, featuring poetry in tribute to the founder of a make of car that no longer exists. There were announcements about the weddings of friends and birth announcements for their children. There was an old love letter from someone she no longer remembers, and an associate membership card to her father's athletic club. There were newspaper articles featuring her for the leading role she had in a locally produced film in the 1920s. There was a letter of recommendation from her employer. What struck me about all of these items is that they each displayed a use of language, a depiction of some behavior, a style of communication, a way of thinking, and/or a set of values and assumptions that are not common today in the United States.

She is 91 years old. Her parents came from opposite sides of the U.S. Civil War. This put her in an interesting place, culturally, in the early 20th Century. She had been part of the U.S. cultures of the "Roaring 20s," the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the post-war suburbs when I joined her. In each of these layers of culture, she was shaped and she participated. And though she has traveled through the 1960s and all the subsequent years that I have known as well, she still loves the songs she heard in the 1920s, sets her hair (and understands economics) in the way she did in the 1930s, wears a shade of red lipstick that she wore in the 1940s, and makes the more or less the same assumptions about the role of men and women that she did in the 1950s. And so the "5 Frameworks" also help me look for differences in my own and my mother's culture. I change the way I talk and behave around my mother, quite instinctively recognizing the differences and adapting my behavior a bit to fit her expectations and needs. Sometimes I do minimize the differences between us, particularly as I see her expression on my own face and wonder if I, too, am destined to wear my current hairstyle into my 90s. But I do know that I have developed a much keener empathy with her now than what I had as a teenager or as a younger woman. I now very clearly remember her when she was the age I am now, and I see the differences and similarities between us and understand more clearly why they are so.

From my own perspective of more than 50 years, I also remember living in past cultures. It is with quite some amusement that I remember how upset we felt in 1968 in Kansas City when one of the girls from my class decided to wear a pants suit to a dance at another school. We were concerned about the reputation of our school. This doesn't sound very much like the US today. I also remember with some astonishment that the teacher in my class in 1964 would often use a hard stick to strike boys who misbehaved, and we all felt this was expected and normal.

I have adapted to new cultural generations as I have lived through them, but I am still very much marked by my participation in the 1960s era, which affects such things as my reaction to tattoos, my feelings about the military, and my reluctance to write in anything but complete sentences and paragraphs. Understanding how my attitudes and reactions have been shaped in the context of my generational layers of culture may also help me recognize and respect the completely different layers that affect people from other cultures.

Bettina Hansel

The job of AFS is enormous. One only needs to read the newspaper to see that intercultural education is sorely needed.

It is not enough to simply go to another country and culture and "just be yourself." Recently you may have read a story of a British teacher arrested and imprisoned in the Sudan for a class project she created for the children that involved a teddy bear that she allowed the children to name Muhammad, to take him home and write stories about him.

See: Sudan Accuses Teacher of Islam Insult By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Looking at this situation with British or US "glasses," this seems like a creative and perfectly normal thing to do, since in a vote, the children themselves selected the name. Yet the parents of some of the children did not think that this was appropriate at all and expected that a teacher would certainly know that. They were clearly looking at the situation with a different set of "glasses" -- with different values and assumptions about what is sacred, about what distinguishes people from animals.

Earlier this year, a different cross-cultural faux pas made its way to the press: actor Richard Gere's public kissing of actress Shilpa Shetty in India.

See: When a Kiss Is More Than a Kiss By PAUL VITELLO

While we have no idea what the U.S. actor, Richard Gere had in mind, it is likely that he was just "being himself," behaving in a way that, in Hollywood, might seem appropriate and amusing. And in spite of his several visits to India in the past, he apparently did not know that this non-verbal behavior was shockingly inappropriate in India.

These are highly publicized and dramatic examples of the difficulties that can arise from an outlook that minimizes cultural differences. AFS volunteers who work with our exchange participants can usually find their own examples of host families who over-react to what the AFS participant assumes is perfectly normal behavior for everyone, or exchange participants who become upset or worried by the family's ordinary, appropriate actions or what they consider "common sense."

Yet in spite of our familiarity with these types of examples, it is still common among both staff and volunteers that we are not always expecting cultural differences when we meet with people from other cultures. While we recognize some differences between cultures, we tend to believe they are somehow less important that the similarities, and that the similarities we share will ensure that we can relate to each other. And where there are some similarities, we may assume that there are many others.

I was struck recently by an article that appeared in the October/December 2007 issue of "Intercultures," an online Canadian journal published by the Centre for Intercultural Learning, Canadian Foreign Service Institute, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. (Cliquez içi pour l'édition française.) The article that caught my attention was the interview with Richard Nesbitt, author of Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... And Why  (Free Press; 2003). The article with the interview is  called "Culture and Cognition." This can be helpful to readers who want to explore what is meant by differences in cognitive style.

Non-verbal Behavior, Cognitive Style (or how we think), and Values and Assumptions are three of the five frameworks of culture that AFS has been using as a way to actively look for and expect differences when we come in contact with other cultures. Understanding how and why cultures may differ in these ways can help us to recognize and accept such differences when we encounter them and to learn how to adapt our behavior in appropriate and respectful ways.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Research, AFS International

Thinking about Colors

In the first edition of Intercultural Eyes we posed the question "What color are your glasses?"  In that case, we were referring to the way one's own culture tints your view on the world. More recently I read an article in the New Yorker about a professional colorist who collected information about the context of various colors in different cultures and made recommendations about product colors to companies wishing to market their products in other cultures. The pharmaceutical industry needed to know if a red pill is seen as strong and effective. Is red related to love or to danger? They found out that they needed to make their pills in different colors for different cultures. I also realized that I had a very strong and immediate reaction when my vitamin pills changed from orange to gray, and I had much preferred a white calcium pill to a new one that was green.

How do we come to these perceptions? What meanings do we bring to a particular part of the light spectrum when we see it in a particular context? Milton Bennett tells us that the Trukese do not have words to distinguish blue and green. Fred Jandt points out that the Shona speakers of Zimbabwe have a color Cipsuka that covers shades of the spectrum from Orange-Red through Purple-Blue. These musings led to the creation of a new, simple intercultural workshop that relates to the first of the 5 Frameworks of Culture: Language Use and Perception.

Collecting New Data: The Long-Term Impact Study tops 1700 responses, and growing.

As of June 26, we have collected over 1700 responses from AFS returnees who went abroad during 1980-86. We are deeply appreciative of all the work that went into tracking down returnees, translating surveys, sending out mailings, and following up by the 14 Partners involved in the study.

Just in the last few days, countries are beginning to contact the control group nominated by the returnees who completed the survey. So far in most countries, the number of nominations for the control group is about 80-90% of the number of returnees who responded. Already we have collected more than 100 control group surveys.

It will be 2008 before we complete the analysis of the results, which will include the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and a number of other measures including some used previously in the 2002 Hammer study. (See "Assessment of Impact of Study Abroad Experience" on http://www.afs.org/research for more information about this study.)

Bettina Hansel

Director of Research, AFS International

"My Different View" is the name we've given to the AFS Essay Contest for returnees, and we are delighted that 35 AFS Partner organizations are participating. The web site for the contest (http://mydifferentview.org) is open as of April 1.

AFS is organizing this contest because we feel strongly that it will be useful and educational for our program alumni to reflect on their experience and what they have learned. The contest is a way to encourage them to tell their stories and to increase their understanding of this incredible experience that they have had. 

Recently, Dr. Bruce LaBrack and Dr. Nan Sussman visited AFS International to help us re-focus our attention on the re-entry phase of the experience. They reminded us that for many participants, the message they hear when they come home is that they now need to return to "normal," to "fit in" and to "return to their old patterns of behavior." What they don't hear is their peers, parents, and others asking them "How are you different now?"  The essay contests asks this now, and we look forward to reading the essays our returnees submit. Thank you to the many staff who are making this possible.

Connecting with our Alumni
One of the most surprising and concerning findings in the 2002 Educational Results Study by Mitch Hammer (see http://www.afs.org/research for more information) was the fact that while almost all students attend orientation sessions prior to departure and in the hosting country, less than 13% of the AFS students who responded to the post-test survey in September of 2003 had attended a post-return orientation event in these first two months after their return home. We know from discussions with volunteers in various countries that it is often difficult to attract participants to the re-entry sessions when they are planned. Post-return sessions that are planned usually do cover issues of re-entry adjustment and frequently attempt to encourage returnees to become involved in the volunteer chapter. Some also offer opportunities for the returnee to reflect on what he or she has learned.

The difficulty we have in gathering our alumni requires us to re-examine the way we provide orientation for this group. If we believe that AFS is a life-long learning experience, it's important to find a way to involve the returnees and to provide them with both support and the opportunity to rediscover their own culture through their re-entry experience.

R2 A4 and the World Wide Web
Having seen the benefits of the alumni web site developed for the "Yes" program participants (the YES program is a US government-funded program which hosts Year Program participants in the US from countries with significant Muslim populations), we are looking with AFS-USA at how this could be developed to include not just the returnee blogs, photos, and discussion forum but also a fun and informative educational element that focuses on the re-entry learning needs of all AFS alumni. We are currently reviewing the orientation goals for re-entry, and all phases of the program, to ensure that we are better addressing the needs of our participants and returnees, and are planning to create modules for use on the web. The first phase of this project involves working with AFS-USA's revision of their "Culture Trek" but we are looking to set up a model for use and adaptation worldwide.

A useful model for developing a re-entry orientation component for an alumni website, or for developing a workshop of any type with recently returned participants was developed by Bruce LaBrack (see attached Word Document). He's named this model the R2 A4 model (each step begins with an R or an A in English) for re-entry programs of any type.

From his many years of experience, Bruce has found that addressing topics in this order creates the most fruitful experience for the returnees. Watch for more information on this project in the coming months.

Bettina Hansel

Director of Research, AFS International

What color are your glasses?
A story frequently used in AFS orientations tells how people who are part of the same culture are like people wearing the same color lenses in their sunglasses. One culture may see the world through blue lenses; another always through yellow, and neither group realizes that they are wearing sunglasses of any color at all. As the story continues, a person with yellow sunglasses visits a country where blue sunglasses are always worn. To understand the culture better, she puts on the blue sunglasses and returns home to report that everything in the other country is green.

Ever since we learned the findings of the 2002 Educational Results study by Mitch Hammer, we have been struck by the need to help our participants be more aware of their own sunglasses. To help them, we also realized we needed to find out what color our own glasses were. As part of this, we have been introducing Milton Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity at a number of trainings last year, and at the World Congress. We have also been working with Milton on some training themes -- 5 Frameworks of Culture -- that could help provide a scaffolding for understanding how cultures may differ and what one should look for when encountering a new or less familiar culture.

These frameworks are not entirely new to AFS, but we believe that we can effectively use them to help participants, families, volunteers and staff to become more aware of the cultural differences they encounter and to have a useful way to think and talk about them. 

We know from the study results and from the many profiles of AFS staff and volunteers that many of us minimize cultural differences and often see these differences as something we need to overcome. 

Some types of cultural differences are more uncomfortable or even threatening for people to think or talk about, so our approach would start with cultural differences that are more comfortable to consider. Interesting examples from real AFS cases should be used to illustrate these frameworks, along with invented scenarios involving exchange participants, host families, schools and peers, and other normal aspects of AFS programs. These examples should also highlight misunderstandings and gaps in communication because of the misunderstandings.

Once people have become familiar with the frameworks and have talked in particular about the quite interesting yet non-threatening cultural differences they will be better able to consider some of the more challenging types of cultural differences. 

Re-entry Focus
Participation in AFS should begin a life-long intercultural learning process, but in many cases it is difficult for AFS to keep in touch with our returnees.  In the 2002 study, returnees were questioned about 2 months after they returned home and at that time, only 13% reported that they had attended a post-return orientation.

We know that many countries do offer post-return orientations and sometimes cannot attract the participants. Post return orientation is typically designed to help students with readjustment difficulties and to recruit them as possible volunteers for AFS. Just as important is to help returnees reflect on what they have learned and what this might mean for their life back in their own culture. This is an ideal place to help address any "reversal" issues for those who now feel the host culture may be preferable to their own culture by helping them gain a realistic understanding of their own culture that they have now seen from afar.

On January 29th, AFS is happy to welcome two experts on re-entry issues for a special meeting to address how AFS might improve this sometimes neglected aspect of our program. Dr. Bruce LaBrack of our Educational Advisory Council and Dr. Nan Sussman, a psychologist who has worked extensively with re-entry experiences in many cultures will be working with Sandy Mitchell and Betsy Hansel on a planning session to help us find new ways to bring post-return reflection and support to our returnees.

Useful Resources and Information

A Resource from Bruce LaBrack:
This is an program on line, with photos, self-quizzes, exercises, opportunities for reflection, explanation of cultural concepts, and so on.  It is up-to-date and very thorough. There is also an extensive re-entry section, even including tips for welcoming home a returning exchange student. Though designed primarily for US university level students who go abroad, most students who are competent in English could benefit by going to the website.

http://www.pacific.edu/sis/culture/pub/CULTURE_ISSUES_2.htm

The site has a feedback section, and is simply offered to the world to use.  AFS organizations are also able to refer participants and returnees to this site "as is."   We will be working with Bruce to on ways to tailor this more specifically to AFS, however, especially to enhance AFS's ability to reach returnees and provide them with tools that help them reflect and gain further perspective about dealing with cultural differences.

Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad:
This U.S. based journal frequently has very useful reports of research done. For the Fall 2006 edition, Betsy specifically recommend the article by Anthony C. Ogden, "Ethnographic Inquiry: Reframing the Learning Core of Education Abroad."

Check the web site for information on how to subscribe.
http://www.frontiersjournal.com

We will continue to use "Intercultural Eyes" as a forum for sharing periodic information about developments and resources for AFS in the intercultural education area,  Keep your eyes open for the next posting. 

Bettina Hansel                                                 Sandy Mitchell
Director of Research and Evaluation               Chief Intercultural Education Officer