Step 5: Select three Critical Incidents in any settings (school, community, and

Question

Step 5: Select three Critical Incidents in any settings (school, community, and workplace) from the list located in the Content of Week 3;

Community Setting:

1. Two women in their late fifties were walking along the street holding hands when a truck drove by and the passenger shouted “lesbo” at them. They were very upset that people thought they were lesbians, and so they stopped holding hands like that. They couldn’t understand why some people had a problem with two women holding hands. It is a normal thing to do.

2. A young woman had recently arrived in the United States ready to start a new life. She enjoyed wearing the same style she wore at home – tight skirts and tight tops that had low necklines. After about a month, she began to notice people staring at her. She thought they were looking at her because she was a foreigner. Then one day someone told her that only prostitutes dressed that way. She felt angry and insulted.

3. A man was walking past a cemetery when he noticed something very odd. To make sure he wasn’t mistaken, he went in to take a closer look. He was very surprised to see two names on the tombstone he was looking at. One was the name of someone who had already died, and next to it was the name of someone who was still living. The tombstone had a birth date but no death date on it. He just couldn’t believe it!

Step 6: Develop a 3 to 4 pages analysis of the three incidents (approximately one page per incident) using Cultural Competencies, Cultural Orientations, and other cultural analysis theories. You must support your analysis by scholarly literature, not an opinion.

Explanation / Answer

George really infuriated me because when it was time to hand in his assignment, he gave me a whole bunch of lame excuses. It really upset me because I felt that he was not taking his work seriously and did not pay attention to the deadlines. I explained the assignment very carefully and put the deadlines up on the board—so when he made up excuses to cover himself, he really made me mad. I felt bad, though, because there was another student who didn’t have his assignment done either, but he apologized and said he’d hand it in later that day. He never did hand it in on that day; he handed it in a few days later, but since he had apologized, somehow I accepted that and was nice to him.

One of the intercultural competencies the professor portrayed throughout this incident can be related to empathy. The concept of empathy can be recognized as being an important part of emotional intelligence and can be crucial for interpersonal relations, whether it be within a work group or in a classroom setting much like the critical incident stated above. Empathy can be associated with being an important part for successful intercultural dialogue. When a patron is empathic, they put their self in the other person’s shoes and try to understand that person’s feelings and or thoughts. (Vre?er, 2015)Natalija Vre?er writes that “empathy can be defined as an emotional and cognitive response of an empathic person to an empathee and the construction of the perspective of the empathee.” (Vre?er, 2015, pp. 66) Time focus is also a model of culture that pertains to this incident; time can be perceived differently from culture to culture. There are two types of time systems: monochromic and polychromic. In some cultures, who prefer monochromic, people typically perform one thing at a time and have a schedule. Whereas some cultures may prefer polychromic time system and they prefer to adhere to one task and are not worried about schedules. (Kawar, 2012, pp. 108) The professor respected the kindness and tolerated the tardiness because of a simple apology. The “bad feeling” the professor felt can be related to the empathic intercultural competency because he forgave and accepted the late assignment from the student who apologized, but became mad at the student who did not apology and just provided the professor with excuses. This critical incident can be related to the following cultural orientations: teacher/student, respect, and apology.

Critical Incident #15- Two women in their late fifties were walking along the street holding hands when a truck drove by and the passenger shouted “lesbo”13 at them. They were very upset that people thought they were lesbians, and so they stopped holding hands like that. They couldn’t understand why some people had a problem with two women holding hands. It is a normal thing to do.

            This critical incident can be related to a few cultural orientations, such as, customs, knowledge, respect and gender roles. Cultural values can impact the contents of gender stereotypes. Dr. Milton Bennett, who sponsors constructivist research and conferencing in intercultural communication, developed a theoretical framework to understand intercultural sensitivity, it is called DMIS, which stands for Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. He developed DMIS to have a better understanding of the differences between cultures. There are three ethnocentric stages according to DMIS, the inability for someone to make distinctions between different cultures, a “us” and “them” mindset, and where people can spot a difference but have a belief that all people should be the same. (Apedaile and Schill, 2008, pp. 10) The passenger in the truck lacked the custom knowledge associated with the women. He also stereotyped the women based on their gender. There is an obvious difference in the “culture norm” by the truck driver yelling at the women and stereotyping them and therefore labeling them. There are obvious culturally shared traditions or beliefs that are inherently different between these two particular groups, and having communicative awareness and behavioral flexibility, one could have a better understanding and or grasp of intercultural communication.

Critical Incident #18- Peter went downtown to an office to pick up some documents. When he arrived, he went to the front desk and talked to the receptionist. The receptionist was very helpful and seemed to go out of his way to make sure Peter wouldn’t have any trouble getting what he needed. Peter was very happy with the service and thought about how different it was from the service in his country. About half an hour later, he was just getting ready to leave the office when he real- ized that he had one more question. The receptionist was not at his desk, but Peter saw him in the hallway so he rushed out to catch him. Instead of helping Peter, the man told him that he was on his break and that Peter would have to wait until he got back. Peter was surprised by the receptionist’s response.

            A couple cultural orientations that can be associated with this particular critical incident can be identified as space: private/public and communication: formal/informal. In today’s society, the workplace is starting to feel more like a global village with all the cross-cultural differences and the people who are brought together. People from all over the world are now working together within the same organization and communicating amongst each other. This can become a challenge when it comes to recognizing and dealing with these cultural diversities. How we communicate with each other and how we accept each other for being different is becoming more and more important because of the fact that the world is starting to become a more culturally diverse universe. Cultures have different expectations of their perception of space, what one culture views as private, the other might view that as public. (Kawar, 2012, pp. 109) The formality of communication illustrates a variety of factors that we think distinguish formal communication from informal communication. One might view formal communication as scheduled in advance, preset agenda, arranged participants and view informal communication as unscheduled, random participants, and unarranged agenda. The distinction between formal and informal communications vary between all cultural backgrounds. There are structures to both communication forms and these structures can be perceived differently to people from different cultural backgrounds as well. The nature of the communication setting will also influence the communication formality. The cultural difference in this scenario is shown by the receptionist in “work mode” and being very helpful compared to when he was not in “work mode” and he was on his break. There are cultures who are the same person regardless if they are “on the clock” or “off the clock.” The receptionist did not view this as being rude because to the receptionist, this was the cultural norm. Peter, on the other hand, was not custom to this type of behavior and therefore viewed this as abnormal or rude. Neither are in the wrong; they are just from culturally different backgrounds. (Chalfonte, Fish, Kraut, Root, 2002)

            In conclusion, we can see that to develop intercultural competence, we as learners, need the opportunities to identify these new cultural differences to be able to adapt and have a better understanding of cultural identities. Intercultural communication is complex and we need to learn how to develop a higher degree of intercultural sensitivity. We have a responsibility to increase our ability to adapt and to accept patrons from cultural backgrounds.

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