Fooled by the pink elephant? | Image by neozen

Are you still reading? And did you visualise a pink elephant?

How come? I clearly asked you not to do so!

The simple answer is that our brain tends to ignore “not”, “don’t” etc. and focus on the content words. You thus tend to do exactly the thing that I am asking you not to do.

If I then say “don’t discriminate”, what happens then? Well, some people believe that you might do just that – not out of any bad intentions, but simply because you get so obsessed with the differences that you are not supposed to discriminate against, that it becomes very difficult to see the similarities and treat people equally. Soon then you start—often unconsciously, and often unintendedly—discriminating others, whether through positive or negative discrimination.

Appreciative Inquiry

In their book Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change, David Cooperrider & Diana Whitney tell a story about Rita Simmel, the president of a New York-based consultancy – a business specialised in mediating heavy conflicts between men and women that often include sexual harassment. This company had spent millions of dollars and many years on trying to solve such conflicts for different companies, but had started to doubt whether they were really making any difference.

A concrete case in point had been one of their current clients who they had worked with for years, but according to all measures things were only getting worse: there had been numerous complaints, law suits, and evaluations showing that people were getting more and more insecure. After training sessions and workshops on the issue, many participants said that they felt more insecure about how to communicate with the opposite sex, felt increased distance and decreased confidence. Furthermore, no women were promoted – and so Rita Simmel wanted to know how she could use Appreciative Inquiry on this conflict.

Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential. (Source)

In other words: appreciative inquiry is a method where you focus on best experiences and on what you really want instead of the problems and the things you don’t want, as is too often the case.

Cooperrider asked Rita what she really wanted to achieve by the intervention in this company. Rita said that they of course wanted to diminish the cases of discrimination against woman (read: don’t discriminate / don’t think of the pink elephant). Cooperrider asked if that was really all she wanted to achieve. She then got silent and thought for a long while and then said that what she really wanted was to see a completely new organisation with high quality work across the sexual boundaries.

Cooperrider thought that this was a great idea, and asked what would happen if all members of the organisations were invited to nominate themselves in pairs as candidates to share their stories about how to create and maintain high quality work across sexes?

Nominating mixed-gender pairs
Photo by Sarah Macmillan

Rita accepted Cooperriders proposal and was soon surprised that in this very same company where they had for so long time tried to fight discrimination, hundreds of pairs now nominated themselves. The project kept growing: a group was trained in interviewing colleagues about their best experiences with cross-sex cooperation. They found lots of stories on mutual confidence, constructive leadership and conflict management and good ways to deal with stereotypes about each other. These interviews were used for inspiration when defining a vision for the organisation and designing policies and practices accordingly. Within just a few years, this company won a price for the “best workplace for women”.

Just imagine… | Photo by zen

Now imagine what would happen, if we as youth workers stopped focusing on creating awareness on cultural differences and prejudices and stopped repeating: “don’t discriminate ethnic minorities.” Imagine what would happen if the first we did was to ask our participants: tell me the story of the time where you have experienced the best cooperation ever with ethnic minorities in your work, what happened? What did you do? What was your contribution? Imagine how much information this would give us about how to integrate and include. We would not just get information about and become aware of cultural differences, and about problems of integration or examples of discrimination. However, we would get really cool and useful information about how to include ethnic minorities into our projects and organisations. And imagine what would then happen if we found ways to enlarge and repeat these best practices and to do much more inclusion.

Imagine what would happen if we started the project development phase during training with asking the participants to tell us the story about when they have themselves felt most included and empowered by being involved in a project. And we then asked them to use this information, (enlarge it and repeat it) to plan how to involve and include ethnic minorities into projects and organisations. I believe that none of such stories would be about “how someone made a project for me”, but rather about “how I was involved in the decision-making process from the very beginning, how I was listened to and taken into account” We might then be so lucky to get youth projects where both minority and majority have been truly involved in all phases from defining, planning, implementing and participating, rather than just be seen as the final recipients of the project.

When being presented with such a method, you might think, oh very nice, but isn’t it too superficial when you cannot deal with the things which went wrong… Or you might think very nice but it wouldn’t work in my case because we really have big problems. And yes you are right; this might be the outcome of focusing on the best, if you do not facilitate the process carefully. On the other hand, if you do use the method of appreciative inquiry to its full potential, you will be amazed with the power it has to dissolve problems and turn the focus towards creativity, ideas and energy. And isn’t that exactly what we need for dealing with the challenges of multicultural societies?

This is the sixth and last article of our critical series on intercultural learning by Lene Mogensen from In Dialogue. [1] Start with The Derdians if you have missed the beginning.

_________
1. It was originally written in 2006, and has lost none of its potency. ↑

Three steps to change behaviour? | Photo by Rohit Mattoo

Many training manuals say that there are three steps in changing behaviour. The first step is raising awareness, the second one is creating new skills, and the third one is getting into action. A brief review of most exercises, however, leaves me with the impression that most exercises focus on creating awareness, whereas the next steps are assumed to happen more or less automatically as long as the awareness has been raised.

Take simulation games and role plays – commonly used methods during intercultural learning. It is often said that they both stimulate awareness about cultural differences—by letting the participants encounter with a simulated different culture—and new skills as participants try to interact with this culture.

There is just one problem: in such games you normally get clear role-descriptions telling you how to act, what your values are, how you greet, how you communicate, what offends you etc. These role descriptions are often made in such a way that there is an inbuilt conflict in the simulation, and you can only overcome this conflict by being disobedient to the rules of the exercise – behaving differently than you are asked to.

So stop being a Derdian and stop following the rules of the Engineers (link to first two articles). How can you both stick to your ‘cultural stereotyped role’ and develop intercultural communication skills – when intercultural skills means that you have to cross the boundary of your habitual behaviour and try out new ways of communicating and acting, which normally means that you have to cross the boundary of your habitual behaviour?

The same issue occurs during many exercises on e.g. inclusive teamwork. Examples are games, where participants have to complete a puzzle nonverbally or deal with pieces of information missing (symbolised by for instance keeping back one of the pieces). The point drawn during debriefings is that everybody is important, that you should cooperate rather than compete, that you should share information etc.

And so, fair enough, awareness of very important aspects of teamwork has been raised – but what is left out is how you cooperate, how you share information, how you learn as a team, how you make everyone feel as an important member of the team.

Participants are not trained on these skills – they are not given the alternative to possible shortcomings. During the exercise they have no chance to practice these skills, because it is an integrated part of the game that they are not allowed to talk and that they will never find that missing part.

I believe that such games can mainly create awareness, but can not develop skills. Does it matter, you might ask? Will people not automatically change behaviour if they are aware of the cultural differences and know that communicating in their usual way will not get them very far? Will they not next time remember, that they have to cooperate and share information? Can we not just assume that awareness automatically gets transferred into skills?

Why do wars continue?

Well, I have doubts, and indeed both research and common sense actually show the opposite – otherwise why do smokers not just stop smoking despite knowing that smoking kills, why do people not just always use condoms despite knowing that HIV is contagious, and why do we not just stop discriminating each other despite having been told since WWII that this is very bad?!

These examples—as selective and controversial as they are—show that the issue is more complex and has many more layers: we do not only need knowledge and awareness, but real and feasible alternatives – we need skills and competences to act differently and a structure in which to do so.

Here is one of the many crucial questions we need to raise: What is polite intercultural communication? How does it sound? What do you say? When do you say it? And another: What does inclusion look like? What do people say, what do they do, how do they organise projects, what is the content of such projects etc? And we should not just be satisfied with the easy answers of “you have to be open-minded, tolerant and listen and respect and include everyone”. Continue asking: How does tolerance look? What do you do when you listen? What is an open mind? Do you need to be open in all cases (also when that means accepting things you would otherwise not accept? What are you going to include them in and how? Remember that including is including into something; e.g. an organisation, decision-making etc. – and not just doing something for somebody.

Practicing intercultural communication | Photo by Josh

And: participants need to have time and space to practice such tools! They need to get a chance to practice listening. They need to try out tools for facilitating participatory based decision.making (not just be aware of including everyone), tools for facilitating the creation of shared visions and goals, giving voice to everyone. They need to know how to oppose to discrimination in an assertive way and set limits to unreasonable behaviour, where culture might otherwise be called upon as an excuse. They need communication tools useful for conflict management and lobbying. Remember that empowering is empowering people to do something e.g. make decisions, manage challenges and conflicts, facilitate meetings, create political changes, and not just being aware of problems of feeling better after participating in an activity.

The question is whether this can be done in simulated surroundings where you are given a role to enact and told to follow artificial rules from the start. I believe not! I believe that skills and competences should be developed in relation to real-life cases and real challenges. I believe that it is more fruitful to train participants to draw on particular skills and to use particular tools; e.g. listening skills, facilitation skills, coaching skills, teambuilding skills, not through raising awareness about their potentials, but by letting them try these skills and tools – listen to each others challenges, facilitate group discussion, coach each other on each other’s real youth work challenges, and giving each other constructive feedback on the performance.

Another way is to use appreciative inquiry – a method looking at past best practices and projecting them into the future. I will get back to this method in my next article…

This is the fifth published article of our critical series on intercultural learning by Lene Mogensen from In Dialogue. [1] Start with The Derdians if you have missed the beginning.

_________
1. It was originally written in 2006, and has lost none of its potency. ↑

This is the first published article of a series on intercultural learning by Lene Mogensen from The Sparkle.

How many of you have ever heard about the country called Derdia? If you haven’t, just take a quick look at the training kit on intercultural learning, where the simulation game “The Derdians” is described here.

In “The Derdians” half of the group has to act as engineers, having to teach the other half – people from Derdia – how to build a bridge with paper, scotch and scissors.

Both the engineers and the Derdians get clear role-descriptions: The engineers are told by which criteria the bridge should be built, and that they should not build it themselves, but teach the Derdians so that they will be able to build bridges in the future. The Derdians on the other hand are instructed in their “cultural behaviour” – e.g. that they touch each other a lot, that they only accept a particular kind of greeting: a kiss on one shoulder, and thus get offended if somebody tries to shake their hand, that they always say yes, even when they mean no, and that they have a particular tradition and religion which prescribes which tools men and women respectively are allowed to touch.

And how does this game look in action? Great fun! Everybody is having a great time. If you use this game as a trainer you will most likely hear laughter and see a group of participants deeply engaged in solving the task – and you will afterwards hear positive feedback: “What an interesting game – the highlight of the course!” Satisfied as a trainer? I am definitely not! Let’s take a closer look at intercultural learning as represented by the engineers meeting the Derdians.

The T-kit proposes that the trainer debriefs the game, writing up facts, feelings and interpretations and discusses to which degree we assume that other people think like we do, and interpret other people’s actions accordingly, and how cultural background influences the role you play. This will for sure lead to an interesting discussion about cultural difference, which we should respect and value. But something still seems to be missing.

Not so long ago I made a group play this game with the above mentioned results: “fun”, “interesting” etc. However, we departed from the above described debriefing and asked the group to describe the two different cultures. Not surprisingly the Derdians were characterised by touching, kissing on shoulders, hugging, sexual segregation, friendly, not liking work so much – behaving according to their culture. The engineers on the other hand were task-oriented, knowledgeable about bridges, delegated the work, able to teach and willing to try to understand others.

Through the discussion following the exercise it became clear for everyone that the “culture” of the engineers is more or less not-existing, according to the simulation game – they have science and knowledge, which they can use to teach the other group something about building the bridges. The Derdians on the other hand do have a “culture”, with such characteristics as kissing on shoulders, hugging, clear gender division etc., which actually complicates the mission of the engineers – namely to bring them knowledge and development. When the group was asked to place the two cultures geographically, there was large agreement: The engineers live up north and the Derdians to the south and east. Disagreement occurred however, when it had to be decided how far south – the northern-Europeans thought that Southern Europe was far enough, whereas the southern Europeans thought we had to go further south – somewhere in Africa. Through this discussion it becomes clear, that the simulation game says more about how Europeans look at other parts of the world/other cultures (sometimes how the majority looks at the minority), rather than actually showing cultural differences.

So back to the start: What is intercultural learning? An interesting discussion of this subject has been started by Gavan Titley’s paper on intercultural learning in DYS COE-activities (also found on this site here).

One of the conclusions is that culture is not a thing, we can characterise, define and almost touch – culture is a concept, which can be defined in indefinite ways. So which one do we choose? “The Derdians” seems to be clear on that point. As far as I can see the simulation game takes a concept of culture on board, which was prevalent in the 1950s-1970s, and which is heavily outdated.

Let me explain: Previously progress was viewed as a development from tradition to modernity. Culture was seen as a characteristic of “traditional societies”, whereas modern societies had “overcome their traditional/cultural beliefs” and were instead ruled by science, rationality and knowledge.

Culture was in this way a kind of “resistance to modernisation, which had to be overcome” (Titley, 2005, p. 12) – just like the engineers have to overcome the kissing and hugging of the Derdians to be able to build bridges. Of course this view of culture is based on a Euro-centric point of view – where the modern are “us” and the traditional are “the others”, who compared to “us” seem to lack something – our rationality and science.

But isn’t this ethnocentrism exactly what we were supposed to fight by intercultural learning?

Time has moved on, our understanding of culture has developed towards greater complexity, and my argument is that we need to base intercultural learning on another concept of culture if we truly want to fight intolerance, prejudices and discrimination. Taking a recognised game like “The Derdians” (but also other games like Albatros and Rafa Rafa) and using it in an unreflected way is very dangerous. Rather than tolerance I am afraid that the game reproduces stereotypes and arrogance of certain population groups or countries towards others. It reduces differences between groups or countries to culture, rather than bringing up a discussion of educational systems in the respective countries, of economic injustices etc.

This point will be discussed further in a series of articles on ICL on this website, which will try to exemplify (and show alternatives) to the critique that Gavan Titley has raised on current ICL practices. So make sure to visit this site again!

Post scriptum: At the above mentioned training the trainers recommended the participants to skip this game and find other means of stimulating intercultural learning. An important question is whether the trainers committed the same crime as they warned about by showing the “wrong example” to reach these points rather than its alternative. This question became very urgent, as many participants kept mentioning the game as a highlight, because it had been so much fun!

Summary of related links:
Training Kit 4 ‘Intercultural Learning’
The Derdians – Excerpt T-Kit 4
ICL is not enough
The Sparkle

Contact Lene by e-mail or share your thoughts with everyone and leave a comment below!

» Is intercultural learning still useful today?

(Originally posted on November 29, 2007 – updated on July 3, 2009)

10 years ago, the «Ten Theses on the correlation between European youth encounters, intercultural learning and demands on full and part-time staff in these encounters» were published by Dr. Hendrik Otten of the «Institute for Applied Communication Research – IKAB».

Since 1997, these ten theses (pdf) have informed the discourse about intercultural learning in youth work.

At the occasion of the 2007 seminar of the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sport entitled «Intercultural learning – which ways forward?», Dr. Hendrik Otten was invited to revisit, de-construct and re-construct the ten theses. And we recorded his intervention as a podcast for the world out there!

Download the podcast below to find out why intercultural learning has failed as a concept to balance cultures, why we will have to accept more unsatisfactory compromises while constructing a shared system of justice, why the ability for intercultural discourse has to be connected with a developed understanding of human rights, how intercultural learning can be used to help people live with dilemmas and ambiguity – and whether intercultural learning has a role and chance in addressing our inner-societal wars.

Enjoy listening, and stay tuned!

In case you need some help with what to do:

A podcast is nothing else than a digital recording of a radio broadcast or a similar programme which is then made available on the internet. While the name is coming from both broadcasting and iPod, a podcast is not restricted to an iPod or any other media player, in fact. You can listen to it easily, using one of many different ways.

If you wanna know more about podcasting, head over to Wikipedia.

The only thing that you need is a computer which can play mp3-files. Millions of programmes do that for you – Windows Media Player (or Jetaudio if you are on the outlook for a better and free alternative) on PC computers or Quicktime on MAC machines or iTunes on both.

Normally your computer knows very well what to do anyway, so just go ahead and download the mp3 file — your machine will take it from there, most likely. If not, ask a geeky character in your vicinity.

Just be aware that audio podcasts are usually not the smallest files (also true for ours: 13 Megabytes), so download might take a moment or two. The good news: It happens in the background, so you can continue to work away!

For you iTunes users out there, we have also included the iTunes link. For you nerdy friends of ours, we also have a more modern version of the soundfile available. And for all friends of RSS and feed readers, we also have a link especially for our podcasts.

At the DYS seminar entitled «Intercultural learning – which ways forward?», Ingrid Ramberg from the Multicultural Centre in Botkyrka, Sweden was invited to be the rapporteur. In that function, she presented some first reflections at the end of the seminar. Again, we recorded her intervention as a podcast for the world out there.

The other two podcasts are here and here.

Download the podcast below to find out some of the first conclusions and reflections by Ingrid (a full-fledged report will be available at some point in 2008).

standard version | mp3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link

Enjoy listening, and stay tuned!

In case you need some help with what to do:

A podcast is nothing else than a digital recording of a radio broadcast or a similar programme which is then made available on the internet. While the name is coming from both broadcasting and iPod, a podcast is not restricted to an iPod or any other media player, in fact. You can listen to it easily, using one of many different ways.

If you wanna know more about podcasting, head over to Wikipedia.

The only thing that you need is a computer which can play mp3-files. Millions of programmes do that for you – Windows Media Player (or Jetaudio if you are on the outlook for a better and free alternative) on PC computers or Quicktime on MAC machines or iTunes on both.

Normally your computer knows very well what to do anyway, so just go ahead and download the mp3 file — your machine will take it from there, most likely. If not, ask a geeky character in your vicinity.

Just be aware that audio podcasts are usually not the smallest files (also true for ours: 7 Megabytes), so download might take a moment or two. The good news: It happens in the background, so you can continue to work away!

For you iTunes users out there, we have also included the iTunes link. For you nerdy friends of ours, we also have a more modern version of the soundfile available. And for all friends of RSS and feed readers, we also have a link especially for our podcasts.

In 2005, a discussion document on intercultural learning was published in follow-up to the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Youth and Sports Long Term Training Course “Intercultural Learning” — LTTC ICL (the paper is available here).

In this document, Dr Gavan Titley argues that, while intercultural learning has become a key work area in European youth training during the last fifteen years, approaches that have been consolidated and widely reproduced during this period are no longer adequate to the realities in which young people live and practice youth work.

At the occasion of the DYS seminar entitled «Intercultural learning – which ways forward?», Gavan was invited to revisit the paper and its main conclusions and bring it in relation to the current educational practice of intercultural learning. Again, we recorded his intervention as a podcast for the world out there.

Download the podcast below to find out why using culture as a concept is dangerous and often inherently racist, why Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay has an intercultural policy and what this means for intercultural learning in non-formal education (and probably elsewhere, too!).

standard version | mp3 version | Podcast Feed | iTunes Link

Enjoy listening, and stay tuned!

In case you need some help with what to do:

A podcast is nothing else than a digital recording of a radio broadcast or a similar programme which is then made available on the internet. While the name is coming from both broadcasting and iPod, a podcast is not restricted to an iPod or any other media player, in fact. You can listen to it easily, using one of many different ways.

If you wanna know more about podcasting, head over to Wikipedia.

The only thing that you need is a computer which can play mp3-files. Millions of programmes do that for you – Windows Media Player (or Jetaudio if you are on the outlook for a better and free alternative) on PC computers or Quicktime on MAC machines or iTunes on both.

Normally your computer knows very well what to do anyway, so just go ahead and download the mp3 file — your machine will take it from there, most likely. If not, ask a geeky character in your vicinity.

Just be aware that audio podcasts are usually not the smallest files (also true for ours: 21 Megabytes), so download might take a moment or two. The good news: It happens in the background, so you can continue to work away!

For you iTunes users out there, we have also included the iTunes link. For you nerdy friends of ours, we also have a more modern version of the soundfile available. And for all friends of RSS and feed readers, we also have a link especially for our podcasts.

In every training course, there is one morning where you wake up with a terrible headache.

While trying to orient yourself – Where am I? Where is my head? Is this my room? Who are you?! – you vaguely remember the previous night, and the enlightenment hits you right there and then: it was the Polish Vodka.

During the next training, you stay away from the vodka, but the Armenian Brandy is just the same… In fact, you can easily recognise regular training course participants – they are the ones who stay away from most of the drinks during the infamous, obligatory, intercultural night.

A night of drinks and snacks, songs and dances.

A night that is rightfully confronted with some fundamental questions: How to make sure that intercultural evenings do not become a parody of what intercultural learning is about? How to avoid the nationalization of culture in an international environment?

These are just two questions asked in the introduction to the seminar on

«Intercultural Learning – which ways forward?»

organised by the Directorate of Youth of the Council of Europe at the end of November 2007 in the European Youth Centre Budapest.

And it seems as if such questions are not asked very often: most intercultural evenings indeed are a parody of what intercultural learning is about.

They have little to do with the people,
they reinforce stereotypes,
they have no educational meaning.

As Laimonas writes in an article for Coyote
to be published in the beginning of next year:

«Recently hardly anyone takes into consideration whether or why such an evening is really needed.»

Laimonas uses the widely known – and also widely disputed – iceberg concept of culture to make his point in saying that

«the majority of intercultural evenings are keeping people just on top of the iceberg. The underwater parts of the iceberg simply remain undiscovered.»

You can dislike the iceberg concept as much as you want, Laimonas does have a point.

So we ask you: how can we do better?

Fire away with ideas – and in January, hold them against Laimonas ideas and experiences on how to get from floating on top of the iceberg to diving into the depth of the cold water underneath.

We can’t say no more but this: it is worth the wait (and we will obviously link to the article once it has appeared in print)!

Happily co-written by Laimonas Ragauskas, Bastian Küntzel and Andreas Karsten.

» An attempt to develop project characteristics

Some words of caution

European Citizenship is a term cherished by many and is being used in a wide range of contexts – to an extent that it probably qualifies as one of the discursive impossibilities of our times.

Much is done with, for and about European Citizenship. Youth work is only one part of the larger picture (arguably an important one), and so is community work in non-formal education contexts. At European level, they come together in a number of settings, some of which are institutionalised and others provided by civil society. The «Youth in Action» programme of the European Union certainly is a key scheme in support of non-formal youth work on European Citizenship, and is the reference framework for this text.

Back in 1998, the EU partnered with the Council of Europe to run a series of pilot courses and modules on European Citizenship. It is from this experience that we try to highlight some basic characteristics of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship.

Obviously, much more could be said on such projects than we can say on these pages. We had to make choices, and warmly invite you to challenge our preferences. Other selections could be made, and we are not only open to discuss alternatives but also encourage you to explore these in practice.

We know that no generalisation we can make will ever apply perfectly: the richness of youth work is elaborate beyond imagining. Yet, the discourse on recognition and valorisation of non-formal learning and youth work remains a political priority and continues with or without practitioners. Hence we better start discussing characteristics of youth work within the community of practitioners and contribute our own experiences from reality, before others define criteria for our work on our behalf without our voice being heard.

You are currently reading a contribution of Frankly Speaking to the many discourses and discussions on quality, recognition and validation of non-formal education and learning.

If you prefer to read a paper version, please download the pdf-version [500 kb].

The starting point

The European Union youth programme «Youth in Action» has just entered its third generation and spans over 7 years from 2007 to 2013.

Under its Priority 1 «European Citizenship» it brings together four spheres or fields in a specific constellation, namely youth work, non-formal education, intercultural learning, and European citizenship. All of these four areas can evidently stand on their own and in themselves are huge and diverse themes to explore.

In other words: When we speak of basic characteristics of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, we only mean projects combining all four areas in their approach – not to discredit any other kind of youth work or non-formal education, but rather to remain in the realm of the «Youth in Action» programme. That said, we believe our thinking and the suggested model deriving from our thoughts could easily be applied to other contexts and constellations, but this is for the future.

On importance, relevance and antagonism

We believe that in a non-formal youth work project on European Citizenship, none of the four spheres is more important than the others and that the fields of youth work, non-formal education, intercultural learning, and European citizenship are related to one another (and indeed, to a certain extent also overlapping) and therefore are not in antagonistic competition but rather complementary. We have chosen to visualise this by means of a wheel (or ring or circle):

This graphic and the underlying assumption both imply that only when all four aspects are considered equally and brought together successfully, can a project be considered a non-formal youth work project on European Citizenship – in this particular framework.

Again, this is not a set of quality criteria suggesting that any other youth work, non-formal activity, or community work on European Citizenship is not high-quality. It merely is a set of characteristics operationalising the principles and foundations of the «Youth in Action» programme and its first priority.

Most importantly we want to underline and acknowledge that there are too many situations in which people are trapped in realities so restrictive, so despairing, that applying our ideal-case scenario does not arise at all.

That our model excludes youth work under such desperate circumstances, does not de-value the courageous work done there – on the contrary, it simply shows the limits of this particular approach (some of which we look at in more detail later).

On principles and values

It is often suggested that non-formal youth work on European Citizenship is based on a shared belief in common principles and values – in fact, that non-formal education and youth work as a whole are based on such commonalities. We argue that this, if you so want, collective philosophy does indeed exist and can best be described by the notions of human rights (as the main foundational principle of the Council of Europe), democracy (as the voluntarily chosen form of government in respect of human rights within and beyond the European Union) and peace (as the main initial motivation for the co-operation in Europe since 1945).

Clearly, all three notions are associated with different histories and carry diverse connotations in particular contexts. But while, to take but one example, the value of a singular human right might be under scrutiny, the principle of human rights as both a system of belief and a set of legal instruments is not questioned fundamentally – and therefore can be considered an essential element of what could be called the collective philosophy (or the common principles and values) of non-formal youth work on European Citizenship.

Hence, the wheel looks now like this, exemplifying that human rights, democracy and peace are not only the principles of our work, but also inform its implementation and practice and are, at the same time, also aim of our work in the sense that all three notions need constant renewal and reaffirmation, to which non-formal youth work on European Citizenship contributes:

On European Citizenship

In a nutshell, we consider European Citizenship a notion based on shared values (which we argued before can be subsumed under human rights, democracy and peace); disassociated from belonging to a particular territory and connected with voluntarily chosen belongings to value-based communities of practice; a complementary rather than an exclusive identity; an ongoing process of re-negotiating power structures and relations (rights and responsibilities, theories and practices) among and between citizens themselves as well as citizens and institutions; an active role of citizens in their different communities across social, cultural, economic and political domains; locally rooted practice and collective work in progress.

In our context (in particular Priority 1 of the «Youth in Action» programme), European Citizenship is not only part of the practice we look at; it also is an aim. The projects we consider here aim at actively and collaboratively constructing and developing European Citizenship through non-formal youth work.

Thus, to begin with, the wheel should be adjusted accordingly to reflect this double meaning (see the graphic on the right).

From our understanding of European Citizenship as a conceptual notion (see our specific paper on European Citizenship), five basic characteristics can be drawn. On that basis, non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should (in no specific order of priority):

• be collective (encourage and work with European communities of practice),
• be inclusive (take up and take in diverse forms of active, democratic citizenship),
• be holistic (address values and beliefs as well as attitudes, knowledge and skills),
• be multi-dimensional (include several dimensions of identity, belonging, practice),
• be power-conscious (locate interactions with larger frameworks of power).

Evidently, more characteristics could be thought of, significantly that non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should lead to action and transformation – how could youth work projects otherwise construct European Citizenship at the same time as exploring European Citizenship?

Some of these characteristics (also this specific one) we do take up in other areas, and we usually have done so by informed choice (for example, not only youth work on European Citizenship, but all youth work should be transformative). As we have emphasized before, the areas and the characteristics are related and therefore necessarily intersect.

On non-formal education

The working paper «Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training and learning in the youth field», a joint discussion document by the European Commission’s Youth Unit and the Council of Europe’s Youth Department commissioned in early 2004, states that:

“Principles in the field of non-formal and informal learning in youth activities are manifold:

• the voluntary and often self-organised character of learning, the intrinsic motivation of participants;
• the close link to young people’s aspirations and interests, the participative and learner-centred approach;
• the open character and structure, the transparency and flexibility of the underlying curricular construction;
• the evaluation of success and failure in a collective process and without judgement on individual success or failure, the ‘right to make mistakes’;
• a supportive learning environment;
• a preparation and staging of activities with a professional attitude, regardless of whether the activity is run by professional or voluntary youth workers and trainers;
• the sharing of results with the interested public and a planned follow-up.”

Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training and learning in the youth field. Working paper by the Youth Unit of the Directorate ‘Youth, Civil Society, Communication’ in the Directorate General ‘Education and Culture’ of the European Commission and the Youth Department of the Directorate ‘Youth and Sport’ in the Directorate General ‘Education, Culture and Heritage, Youth and Sport’ of the Council of Europe. Strasbourg and Brussels, February 2004: p. 6.

We suggest to derive five characteristics from this and argue that non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should be (in no specific order of priority):

• be accessible (make results available, have a planned follow-up, valorise outcome),
• be learner-centred (based on participants’ needs and co-constructed with them),
• be evaluated (assessed in a collective process without judgement on individuals),
• be voluntary (based on the intrinsic motivation and self-responsibility of learners),
• be experiential (based on collective and individual experiences of people).

On youth work

In a discussion paper written in May 2006, Peter Lauritzen described youth work like this:

“The main objective of youth work is to provide opportunities for young people to shape their own futures.

Youth work is a summary expression for activities with and for young people of a social, cultural, educational or political nature. Increasingly, youth work activities also include sports and services for young people. Youth work belongs to the domain of ‘out-of-school’ education, most commonly referred to as either non-formal or informal learning.

The general aims of youth work are the integration and inclusion of young people in society. It may also aim towards the personal and social emancipation of young people from dependency and exploitation.

Youth Work belongs both to the social welfare and to the educational systems. In some countries it is regulated by law and administered by state civil servants, in particular at local level. However, there exists an important relation between these professional and voluntary workers, which is at times antagonistic, and at others, cooperative.

The definition of youth work is diverse. While it is recognised, promoted and financed by public authorities in many European countries, it has only a marginal status in others where it remains of an entirely voluntary nature. What is considered in one country to be the work of traditional ‘youth workers’ – be it professionals or volunteers – may be carried out by consultants in another, or by neighbourhoods and families in yet another country or, indeed, not at all in many places.

Today, the difficulty within state systems to adequately ensure global access to education and the labour market, means that youth work increasingly deals with unemployment, educational failure, marginalisation and social exclusion.

Increasingly, youth work overlaps with the area of social services previously undertaken by the Welfare State. It, therefore, includes work on aspects such as education, employment, assistance and guidance, housing, mobility, criminal justice and health, as well as the more traditional areas of participation, youth politics, cultural activities, scouting, leisure and sports.

Youth work often seeks to reach out to particular groups of young people such as disadvantaged youth in socially deprived neighbourhoods, or immigrant youth including refugees and asylum seekers. Youth work may at times be organised around a particular religious tradition.”

On the basis of that description, we suggest the following set of five characteristics for non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, which should (in no specific order of priority):

• be contextualised (rooted in local, authentic situations, communities and needs),
• be transformative (improving life situations of people, leading to action and change),
• be participatory (with progressive involvement and empowerment of young people),
• be informed (by relating to current discourses and research on issues related to the project),
• be informing (providing information and feedback to policy, practice and research).

On intercultural learning

In a 2005 discussion paper on culture and intercultural learning, Gavan Titley argues that

“[while] intercultural learning has become a key work area in European youth training during the last fifteen years, [...] approaches that have been consolidated and widely reproduced during this period are no longer adequate to the realities in which young people live and practice youth work.”

The paper “contends that widely-utilised notions of culture, and the methodologies that propagate them, are both analytically and politically inadequate,” and puts forward a number of recommendations for educational practice.

Based on the considerations discussed there and elsewhere, we suggest that non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship should (in no specific order of priority):

• be plastic (exploring cultural realities and conceptual understandings of culture),
• be political (conscious of contesting discourses on culture and their political relevance),
• be contingent (aware of the contexts and purposes of intercultural dialogue processes),
• be sensitive (to culture as a ubiquitous, de-politicised concept in need of re-calibration),
• be complex (explore identity and connectivity beyond culture, individuals and Europe).

On open questions

This is a first version of the «Wheel of European Citizenship». Clearly, the jury is still out on whether the approach developed here is relevant and useful at all: discussions with trainers will validate our experiences against a wider spectrum; training courses will show whether the model holds up in dialogue with practitioners. Beyond these foreseeable fora for exchange we invite everyone to share their thoughts, concerns, questions and critiques with us. Two questions, to get you started:

1) Have we captured the essence of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship?

2) If you are inclined to follow our approach of characterising projects descriptively by using adjectives: what about features like being concrete, diverse, relevant, empowering, interactive, critical, reflexive – to name but a few…?

The Wheel of European Citizenship

Bringing the different parts of the wheel together gives you this overview of non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, which should combine:

and in doing so, have the following characteristics (in no specific order of priority):

The final «Wheel of European Citizenship» is bringing the different thoughts and characteristics together in one coherent, visual model:

Conclusion
C O N C L U S I O N

This article contends that non-formal youth work in the framework of the «Youth in Action» programme actively constructs European Citizenship for, with and through value-based European communities of practice by facilitating intercultural learning and dialogue through projects based on the principles of youth work and non-formal education.

For each of the four spheres (youth work, non-formal education, intercultural learning, and European citizenship) we present five basic project characteristics (some of which are as intersecting and interrelated as the four themes necessarily are) and hence put forward a set of twenty features for non-formal youth work projects on European Citizenship, visualised as the «Wheel of European Citizenship».

We suggest that the wheel may well be used as a tool for project planning and, potentially, project management as well as an indicative instrument for the valorisation of project results.

But the model presented here also has clear limitations: Firstly, characteristics are descriptive and not measurable; they are neither quality criteria nor project indicators. It will require substantial effort to develop our approach further before it can become a meaningful tool for the recognition and validation of non-formal learning. Secondly, there is an entire range of other youth and community work out there that the model disregards; though we believe it would be possible with manageable effort to adapt the wheel accordingly.

Our thoughts and proposals are mainly based on the extensive experiences from a range of activities on European Citizenship run by the Council of Europe and the European Commission in partnership between 1998 and 2006. Clearly, there is more relevant experience available, and – being aware of this – we warmly invite you to share your comments and considerations on what we have developed here.

Note on the context of this paper

This text was put together by Andreas Karsten inspired by discussions with Paola Bortini, Florian Cescon, Rui Gomes, Erzsebet Kovacs and Tatiana State in the framework of the development of a new network training course on European Citizenship for the «Youth in Action» programme. Please consider it as what it is: a working document and the personal opinion of the author.

The graphics contained in this document are all self-made by the author specifically for this text and can be used unchanged, given that the source is quoted.

Sources and resources
Sources and resources

All documentations, reports and evaluations in relation to pilot courses and training modules on European Citizenship between 1998 and 2006, and in addition:

Brocke, Hartmut and Karsten, Andreas (eds) (2007): Towards a common culture of co-operation between civil society and local authorities. Human Rights Education and youth participation. Centre Francais de Berlin, Berlin.

Castells, Manuel (1997): The Power of Identity. Blackwell, London.

Chisholm, Lynne and Hoskins, Bryony (2005): Trading up. Potential and performance in non-formal learning. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Colley, Helen et al (2003): Informality and formality in learning. Learning and Skills Research Centre, London.

Cummings, Andrew (2003): Youth work’s contribution to non-formal education. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

DG EAC (2007): Youth in Action Programme 2007-2013. Users Guide. European Commission, Brussels.

Erle, Jacob (2005): Multilayered Democracy and European Citizenship. International Academy for Education and Democracy, Copenhagen.

Freire, Paulo (1972): Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Freire, Paulo and Shor, Ira (1987): A Pedagogy for Liberation. Dialogues on transforming education. Greenwood Press, Westport.

Holder, Sharon and Titley, Gavan (2004): Resituating culture – seminar reflections. In Coyote Vol 8 2004. Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg and Brussels.

Jeffs, Tony and Smith, Mark (2005): Informal education: conversation, democracy and learning. Educational Heretics Press, Nottingham.

Karsten, Andreas (2007): 12 characteristics of successful co-operation projects. In: Brocke and Karsten (ibid).

Karsten, Andreas (2003): Better youth workers? Better citizens? The impact of the pilot courses on European Citizenship. Partnership, Strasbourg.

Karsten, Andreas (2000): Staying alive: the non-formal education domain in Europe. European Youth Forum, Brussels.

Kovacs, Erzsebet (2007): European Citizenship. Unpublished working document.

Küntzel, Bastian and Karsten, Andreas (2007): Forum on Intercultural Dialogue. Discussion paper based on the Forum. INGO Assembly of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Lauritzen, Peter (2006): Defining youth work. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Lauritzen, Peter (2006): The role of research. Podcast, Youth Debate and Nonformality.

Lauritzen, Peter et al (2004): Pathways towards validation and recognition of education, training and learning in the youth field. Working paper. Council of Europe, Strasbourg and European Union, Brussels.

Martinelli, Silvio and Taylor, Mark (eds) (2000): Intercultural Learning T-Kit. Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg and Brussels.

Merry, Peter (ed) (2003): Under construction. European Citizenship T-Kit. Council of Europe and European Commission, Strasbourg and Brussels.

Otten, Hendrik (2006): Quality on European youth work and youth policy. Conference conclusions. Bonn, 2006.

Otten, Hendrik (ed) (2004): Interkulturelles Lernen in Theorie und Praxis. Ein Handbuch für Jugendarbeit und Weiterbildung. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden.

Otten, Hendrik and Lauritzen, Peter (eds) (2004): Jugendarbeit und Jugendpolitik in Europa. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden.

Rogers, Alan (2003): Inside youth work. YMCA College, London.

Sahlberg, Pali (1999): Bridges for learning: conceptualising non-formal education. European Youth Forum, Brussels.

Smith, Linda and McNeil, Bethia (2004): Success factors in informal learning. Learning and Skills Research Centre, London.

Smith, Mark J. (2001): Culture. Reinventing the Social Sciences. Open University Press, Buckingham.

Titley, Gavan (2005): Plastic, Political and Contingent. Culture and Intercultural Learning in DYS activities. Discussion document based on the evaluation of the LTTC Intercultural Learning and recent research activities. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Titley, Gavan (ed) (2004): Resituating Culture. Council of Europe, Strasbourg.

Tucket, Allan (2004): Recognising and recording progress and achievement in non-accredited learning. Learning and Skills Development Agency, London.

Welsch, Wolfgang (1999): Transculturality: the puzzling forms of cultures today. In: Featherstone and Lash (eds): Space of Culture. Sage, London.

The context of the project may sound very specific, but the outcome is a brilliant resource for any person facilitating processes of exchange, dialogue and discussion anywhere in the world!

The study was commissioned by the German Technical Cooperation Organisation (GTZ) in support to the HIV/AIDS Programme of the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

You may wonder what the work of Mandela’s foundation against AIDS has to do with dialogue. Well, promoting dialogue has been and remains one of the prime goals of the foundation’s HIV programme.

“Maintaining public interest in HIV and AIDS has proven to be a key to beginning to challenge individuals and organisations on an increasing and significant scale to help those who are affected and infected.”

It is in the framework of this thinking that an excellent toolkit on dialogue was produced which introduces itself by quoting the author of Sophie’s World and Norwegian intellectual, Jostein Gaarder:

“An answer is always the part of the road that is behind you. Only questions point to the future.”

The introduction continues to set the ground for the publication by observing that our modern world loves answers and quick solutions to problems, which we love to pass on to others through writing, teaching and lecturing. The authors continue to state, and I could not agree more, that this approach — while being useful in some situations — is problematic when addressing the challenges of our time – social and human, economic and political.

Why is that so?

Pioneers of Change and the GTZ have two reasons to give to the answer-craving audience:

Firstly, we live in a world of increasing complexity, where answers have a short life-span and problems are characterised by three types of complexity: dynamic complexity, social complexity and generative complexity.

Secondly, people seem to have an inherent desire to solve their own problems, which is why universal, formulaic responses imposed from the outside often fail — producing even more simplistic “solutions”.

So, dialogue is the ultimate solution then?!

Well, not so quickly! Let’s have a closer look at the two reasons and see where this takes us.

The idea of threefold complexity stems from Adam Kahane and his book «Solving tough problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities» about which Nelson Mandela said:

“This breakthrough book addresses the central challenge of our time: finding a way to work together to solve the problems we have created.”

In his book Kahane typifies complexity and in doing so differentiates between

• dynamic complexity, meaning that cause and effect are distant in space and time and suggesting that a systemic approach is needed to address this type of complexity and underlying problems,
• social complexity, meaning that there is no singular truth or ownership of an issue but rather many different and usually conflicting opinions and assumptions about the problem in question, suggesting that a participative approach is required to deal with this kind of complexity,
• generative complexity, meaning the problematic situation is constantly and unpredictably changing and therefore old solutions to previous problems are not working any longer, suggesting that a creative approach is necessary to cope with this form of complexity.

In other words, Kahane claims that today’s problems can only be solved by processes which are holistic, democratic and imaginative.

And how could you better combine these approaches than through shared experience and exchange? How could you better stimulate new ideas and utilise the wisdom of crowds than through genuine dialogue?

So here it is then, the spirit in which this handbook critically explores different tools and methods to engage in processes of authentic dialogue. Excitingly, the authors have not just described a couple of tools. They have done much more in looking at the stories behind the approaches and asking where they come from to put each approach into a context.

It is because of this contextualisation and historicisation that the book can also provide unique space for constructive and critical reflection by showing limits or pointing out weaknesses of the approaches described. At the same time, the publication gives hints on how to creatively combine different methods and strategies to best respond to the situation at hand.

Let me give you an example to illustrate the publication’s approach and my point. You all know very well the circle as a method of engaging in dialogue with groups of up to 30 people or so. Well, the book has something important to say on the circle:

“For many who are not used to the circle, the slowness of the conversation and thinking can be frustrating… It’s worth noting that social science research has actually been done to show that the first person to speak can have a large influence on what is said and the direction the conversation takes. The circle seems particularly prone to this dynamic. This can be useful, but it can also be problematic.”

To cut a long story short: In doing these things it is so much better than most toolboxes out there. Actually, by doing these things it is much better than most toolboxes out there.

So what exactly are you waiting for?
Right click, save as, print and read!

And obviously: try out and explore in practice, and if you have something to say
please do give feedback to the authors – it will surely be appreciated…

∞

During my previous articles on this page I have raised critique against intercultural learning (ICL) as used in European youth work these days. I have described how some intercultural learning exercises like the Derdians, where participants are split into those that have modern knowledge and those that have traditional culture, present an old-fashioned understanding of culture, leading to the risk of creating prejudices through intercultural learning.

It might now be time for a small disclaimer – or as we would say in Danish (according to an old aphorism), we have to watch out that we do not “throw out the baby with the bathwater”. Intercultural learning focusing on creating awareness of cultural differences can be useful… in certain situations at least.

Many exercises that are prevalent in current European youth work are based on work done within the business sector. The business sector has developed training programmes, which aim at making business men or diplomats aware of cultural differences in other countries, when they take an overseas assignment or have to negotiate with businesses from other countries.

If one single person is going to travel to another (culturally very different) country, there is indeed a big chance that the persons he will encounter with, will on average be “culturally different” than him, and he does well in adapting his communication style accordingly if he wants a successful outcome for himself and the company.

This approach adapted to youth work makes sense when it comes to preparing individuals for a long term exchange programme like European Voluntary Service (EVS) projects of the YOUTH programme. Or when it comes to developing projects with organisations from diverse countries that have to reach a common agreement.

However, the same ICL approach is used during trainings focusing on societal changes – on involving ethnic minorities in youth work, on fostering diversity, fighting xenophobia, racism and intolerance etc. The argument goes that because it all has to do with culture the answer is the same: increase the contact between culturally diverse people, make them aware of cultural differences, and voila… you get tolerance, acceptance etc!

Practice seems to be based on the “contact hypothesis” that came into fashion in the 50’s stating that increased contact would automatically diminish prejudices – unless the contact was superficial. So one of the objectives of many short-term exchanges, seminars and trainings is to get a group of people together from as many nations as possible (both in the team as in the group of participants) – the greater the geographical spread the better.

But isn’t getting a group of young people from different cultures together for one week exactly that: superficial? Add to this that the research never has been able to confirm the hypothesis about increased contact leading to increased tolerance. The human being is a group-animal; we tend to identify with our in-group and see “the other group(s)” as less good – whether we talk about cultural groups, youth groups and organisations, social class etc. Bringing representatives from such groups together does not a priori tear down the boundaries, but might just as well lead to increased conflicts and prejudices if there is no common goal for the different groups.

Okay you might think – but that is why we do not just bring them together but also try to stimulate intercultural awareness, give people knowledge about cultural differences etc. But to this I have to add that learning that a Turkish immigrant behaves in the Turkish way is not actually telling me anything about his experiences as an immigrant, but giving me some stereotypes about this person.

Can a participant from Turkey really teach us about the lived experience of a 3rd generation minority whose grandparents originally emigrated from Turkey and now live in Denmark? (Would we ever dare to ask the granddad of young Danish woman, what her culture is and how her behaviour should be?).

Stereotypes is to judge people according to their group-belonging, thinking that somebody behaves like everybody else from that group and has no will of his or her own. It doesn’t tell me anything about this person’s dreams for his own life, about his visions for the society he lives in and about the possible discrimination he might have experienced. Moreover as discussed in previous articles the challenges of multiculturalism in our societies is not just about culture – it is about power, social inequality, access to education, proper housing, job-market and decision making bodies. Focusing on culture disempower us by hiding these other factors.

There are at least two big differences between the two mentioned situations: On the one hand travelling abroad or starting cross-national cooperation, and on the other hand dealing with challenges of multicultural societies:

First of all the first kind of situations justify that I assume that the people I am going to deal with in the foreign culture are averagely “culturally different” from me. However, assuming this in a multicultural society, means judging the individual based on group belonging – it means robbing immigrant youth from defining their own life rather than live the ones of their parents and grandparents, and it means making culture the major determinant of their behaviour.

Secondly the first kind of situations imply a common goal: we are going to cooperate in the same business, organisation or network and have to negotiate a solution we can all agree upon. The situation of multicultural societies is different: Majority and minority often compete about the same resources: the same apartments, the same jobs, the same political positions. Not surprisingly racism and xenophobia is most prevalent in the lowest classes – among the people who are afraid of losing the most in this fight. And those in power do not necessary have a wish to truly include minorities as this might endanger their positions as well.

So what should be the outcome of intercultural learning? I would claim that this depends on which situation you are going to deal with: preparing individuals or teams for time-limited travel or co-operation or work towards increased tolerance and inclusion in multicultural societies. Just being aware of cultural differences is not good enough, but the participants need specific competences to deal with the different situations.

Therefore specific training approaches need to be developed for each situation instead of just using the same simulation exercise in all cases.

Lene Overgaard Mogensen, The Sparkle (lene@thesparkle.org)

Fire away with your comments!

How many of you have ever heard about the country called Derdia? If you haven’t, just take a quick look at the training kit on intercultural learning, where the simulation game “The Derdians” is described here.

In “The Derdians” half of the group has to act as engineers, having to teach the other half – people from Derdia – how to build a bridge with paper, scotch and scissors.

Both the engineers and the Derdians get clear role-descriptions: The engineers are told by which criteria the bridge should be built, and that they should not build it themselves, but teach the Derdians so that they will be able to build bridges in the future. The Derdians on the other hand are instructed in their “cultural behaviour” – e.g. that they touch each other a lot, that they only accept a particular kind of greeting: a kiss on one shoulder, and thus get offended if somebody tries to shake their hand, that they always say yes, even when they mean no, and that they have a particular tradition and religion which prescribes which tools men and women respectively are allowed to touch.

And how does this game look in action? Great fun! Everybody is having a great time. If you use this game as a trainer you will most likely hear laughter and see a group of participants deeply engaged in solving the task – and you will afterwards hear positive feedback: “What an interesting game – the highlight of the course!” Satisfied as a trainer? I am definitely not! Let’s take a closer look at intercultural learning as represented by the engineers meeting the Derdians.

The T-kit proposes that the trainer debriefs the game, writing up facts, feelings and interpretations and discusses to which degree we assume that other people think like we do, and interpret other people’s actions accordingly, and how cultural background influences the role you play. This will for sure lead to an interesting discussion about cultural difference, which we should respect and value. But something still seems to be missing.

Not so long ago I made a group play this game with the above mentioned results: “fun”, “interesting” etc. However, we departed from the above described debriefing and asked the group to describe the two different cultures. Not surprisingly the Derdians were characterised by touching, kissing on shoulders, hugging, sexual segregation, friendly, not liking work so much – behaving according to their culture. The engineers on the other hand were task-oriented, knowledgeable about bridges, delegated the work, able to teach and willing to try to understand others.

Through the discussion following the exercise it became clear for everyone that the “culture” of the engineers is more or less not-existing, according to the simulation game – they have science and knowledge, which they can use to teach the other group something about building the bridges. The Derdians on the other hand do have a “culture”, with such characteristics as kissing on shoulders, hugging, clear gender division etc., which actually complicates the mission of the engineers – namely to bring them knowledge and development. When the group was asked to place the two cultures geographically, there was large agreement: The engineers live up north and the Derdians to the south and east. Disagreement occurred however, when it had to be decided how far south – the northern-Europeans thought that Southern Europe was far enough, whereas the southern Europeans thought we had to go further south – somewhere in Africa. Through this discussion it becomes clear, that the simulation game says more about how Europeans look at other parts of the world/other cultures (sometimes how the majority looks at the minority), rather than actually showing cultural differences.

So back to the start: What is intercultural learning? An interesting discussion of this subject has been started by Gavan Titley’s paper on intercultural learning in DYS COE-activities (also found on this site here).

One of the conclusions is that culture is not a thing, we can characterise, define and almost touch – culture is a concept, which can be defined in indefinite ways. So which one do we choose? “The Derdians” seems to be clear on that point. As far as I can see the simulation game takes a concept of culture on board, which was prevalent in the 1950s-1970s, and which is heavily outdated.

Let me explain: Previously progress was viewed as a development from tradition to modernity. Culture was seen as a characteristic of “traditional societies”, whereas modern societies had “overcome their traditional/cultural beliefs” and were instead ruled by science, rationality and knowledge.

Culture was in this way a kind of “resistance to modernisation, which had to be overcome” (Titley, 2005, p. 12) – just like the engineers have to overcome the kissing and hugging of the Derdians to be able to build bridges. Of course this view of culture is based on a Euro-centric point of view – where the modern are “us” and the traditional are “the others”, who compared to “us” seem to lack something – our rationality and science.

But isn’t this ethnocentrism exactly what we were supposed to fight by intercultural learning?

Time has moved on, our understanding of culture has developed towards greater complexity, and my argument is that we need to base intercultural learning on another concept of culture if we truly want to fight intolerance, prejudices and discrimination. Taking a recognised game like “The Derdians” (but also other games like Albatros and Rafa Rafa) and using it in an unreflected way is very dangerous. Rather than tolerance I am afraid that the game reproduces stereotypes and arrogance of certain population groups or countries towards others. It reduces differences between groups or countries to culture, rather than bringing up a discussion of educational systems in the respective countries, of economic injustices etc.

This point will be discussed further in a series of articles on ICL on this website, which will try to exemplify (and show alternatives) to the critique that Gavan Titley has raised on current ICL practices. So make sure to visit this site again!

Post scriptum: At the above mentioned training the trainers recommended the participants to skip this game and find other means of stimulating intercultural learning. An important question is whether the trainers committed the same crime as they warned about by showing the “wrong example” to reach these points rather than its alternative. This question became very urgent, as many participants kept mentioning the game as a highlight, because it had been so much fun!

Summary of related links:
Training Kit 4 ‘Intercultural Learning’
The Derdians – Excerpt T-Kit 4
ICL is not enough
The Sparkle

Contact Lene by e-mail or share your thoughts with everyone and leave a comment below!