9.3 Developing intercultural competence

As Verdooren (2014, p. 19) rightly stated, we want to do more than talk about cultures and develop our sensitivity towards factors influencing interactions. We want to develop meaningful ideas and options as to how to interact in a multicultural world. This means that we need knowledge and skills which enable us to respond to those situations which may be confusing, perceived as strange if not incomprehensible or incompatible.

Understanding interculturality as a communicative interaction which is lacking familiarity, routine action and plausibility means we need competencies enabling us to ‘create a sense of normality or familiarity that neutralizes the anxiety, stereotyping, negative attributions and in-out group mechanism that the intercultural space may bring about’ (Verdooren, 2014, p. 19). In other words, interculturality requires competencies which have the potential to enable the involved persons to explore commonalities and to create a common space and connection from where differences can be explored and be dealt with.

When introducing the general concept of intercultural competence in session 08 it was stated that intercultural competence is commonly considered as having three dimensions, a knowledge, a skill and an attitude and awareness dimension. Whereas the knowledge dimension refers to knowledge for example of social processes, knowledge about how other people see themselves and general country and culture specific knowledge, the skills dimension refers to the ability to do something. It includes aspects such as observing, evaluating, changing perspectives, reflecting, and processing acquired knowledge. It was also argued that awareness and attitude are a precondition for a constructive cooperation. Whereas awareness relates to the cognizance, consciousness and sensitivity of recognizing where and how culture influences interactions, the attitude refers to the approach I am taking once I realize the influence of culture on behavior.

What these elaborations show and you probably noticed when carrying out the tasks is that there is a relationship and interdependence between the three dimensions of intercultural competence. This is also why at times it is difficult if not impossible to place an item with only one of the three dimensions. Think about language for example, knowing the vocabulary and sentences structure of a language would clearly be placed with knowledge. But such a knowledge is surely not enough in order to communicate in an adequate and appropriate way. This would require skills to be sensitive to context, the ability to know when to say what in which way and include aspects such as politeness and communication strategies and styles. And it would require the readiness and motivation to explore when and how to communicate what.

In short it is necessary to develop an awareness and use one’s open attitude to generate knowledge. And such knowledge goes beyond facts as it includes a reflection of one’s own behavior in order to establish a repertoire of skills needed for reflexive action applicable in a specific context. A competence of action is thus one which considers the process of interaction and does justice to the fact that the word competence according to the Online Etymological Dictionary comes from the Latin word competentia meaning “meeting together” and in its earlier sense “fall together” or “come together” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/competence 31.12.2020) . A competence of action or intercultural competence for that matter can thus be defined as the ability to act in a way that supports the co-creation of shared spaces that are perceived as appropriate, inclusive and satisfying.

As you went along working on the various sessions, the case studies became more complex and you started to consider a variety of domains to be analyzed and finally worked on issues helping you to develop meaningful interventions. Going through these various activities reflects the process character of intercultural competence development. It is thus not unusual that with a growing complexity we also realize how big our knowledge gaps are and that not-knowing and dealing with this fact of not-knowing is part and parcel of intercultural competence.

There are countless definitions of intercultural competence highlighting specific knowledge, skills and behavioral dimensions and Deardorff (2020, p. 5) summarizes them by saying that:

"...intercultural competencies in essence are about improving human interactions across difference, whether within a society (differences due to age, gender, religion, socio-economic status, political affiliation, ethnicity, and so on) or across borders.” In the definition used in this module we want to go a step further and focus on the action orientation of intercultural competence by referring to competencies which support the co-creation of shared spaces that are perceived as appropriate, inclusive and satisfying by all actors involved."

The core competencies discussed in our context here are openness, communication and culture-reflexive knowledge and are therefore by no means exhaustive but have been chosen on the basis of relevance and for providing focus.