Increasing cultural flexibility: a psychological perspective on the purpose of intercultural education

Abstract

Introduction Farjad was an academic from the Middle East doing his PhD at a typical Australian research university. He was enrolled in the University's Integrated Bridging Program (IBP), which offers training in language, communication and research skills for international research students in the first semester of their candidature and works with them to bridge the possible differences in academic expectations across cultures. Farjad was an enthusiastic participant and had made good progress, but half way through the program he started to withdraw himself from learning and became quiet. Asked to respond to a self-reflection on ‘resistance’ to learning, Farjad drew a dot on a piece of paper, as Figure 1 shows, and said to the IBP Coordinator, ‘This is where you want me to be’. He then drew a circle about 10 centimetres away from the dot and said, ‘But this is where I was and who I was’. He then commented, ‘The closer I am to where you want me to be, the further I am away from where and who I was. I feel torn apart and I don't feel I want to go further down this path’. This story demonstrates an emotional dilemma we often face when negotiating cultural borders in intercultural education. As Roberto Salvadori (1997, p. 186) stresses in his discussion of difficulties of interculturalism, while we may well be inclined to be in solidarity with others, we are at the same time attached to our own culture and are likely to ‘harbour a certain amount of misanthropy and a desire to distance ourselves from others’.