Year Two of Khabarovsk-Orebro-Stanford Collaboration
One year ago, winter 2009, students at Örebro University, Stanford University and Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law collaborated on this blog, using the Khabarovsk-Örebro-Stanford Blogging category. This year 2010 we are going to continue the conversation on-line.
The students at Örebro University study a class on intercultural communication as part of a programme in rhetoric, having Dr Anders Eriksson as their professor. The students at Stanford are taking a class in the Program of Writing and Rhetoric focusing on political leadership, with Dr Alyssa O'Brien. The students in Khabarovsk are taking a class on Intercultural Business Communication with Dr Olga Kovbasuyk. The three professors met at the fifth International Intercultural Communication Conference in Wichita Kansas May 2008.
The collaboration is going to have several phases. The students from Örebro are going to present themselves and their cultural background on February 4, post reflections on stereotypes and why they are not true by March 11, and post an abstract in english of their research papers by March 18.
To have intercultural competence is to be able to communicate effectively between cultures. One of the first steps is to be aware of our own cultural bias. January 28 the students in Örebro tried the online simulation called Cage Painting, see Rimmington & Alagic Third Place Learning. The purpose was to become aware of the "cages" around us that block effective communication. This week, February 4, we are going to share some of the cultural bias we have discovered. In rhetorical theory this is called our doxa, our hidden assumptions, the things we take for granted. As we present ourselves we will also say something about our culture that will be important for a conversation partner from an other culture to know. The students at Stanford and Khabarovsk, when they collaborate with the students in Örebro, will learn some of new things about us and our culture.
Dr.Anders Eriksson, Örebro University