The Development of Intercultural Sensitivity

Denial A denial of difference may occur when physical or social isolation precludes any contact at all with significant cultural differences. A more common form of denial is parochialism (limited view) that allows difference to be perceived at a minimal level without much discrimination.

Example: Asians are different from Westerners, without recognition that Asian cultures are different from one another. Extreme cases of denial attribute cultural difference to sub-human status.

Defence Defence against difference - attempts to counter perceived threat to the centrality of one's worldview. -defence strategy "negative stereotyping“ (attached to race, religion, age, gender, or any other assumed indicator of difference). -Another defence strategy is the assumption of cultural superiority (one simply assumes that one's own culture is superior.

Minimization final attempt to preserve the centrality of one's own worldview and attempts to "bury" difference under the weight of cultural similarities. Cultural differences are overtly acknowledged and are not negatively evaluated. Differences are trivialized or deemed relatively unimportant compared to the far more powerful dictates of cultural similarity.

Acceptance a move from ethnocentrism to ethno- relativism the belief that things like truth and morals change depending on a particular culture or situation. cultural difference is acknowledged and respected. Difference is perceived as fundamental, necessary, and preferable in human affairs. Differences are not evaluated--they simply exist. There are two sub-levels of acceptance: Acceptance of behavioral difference, including language, communication style, and nonverbal patterns. Acceptance of underlying cultural differences, which may represent profoundly different organizations of reality.

Adaptation Empathy - involves a temporary shift in frame of reference such that one construes events "as if" one were the other person. Empathy approximates a shift in cultural worldview. Cultural pluralism, which is here taken to mean the ability to shift into two or more rather complete cultural worldviews. The terms bicultural and multicultural are often used to refer to this phenomenon.

Integration Application of ethno-relativism to one's own identity. A multicultural person is not simply the person who is sensitive to many different cultures. Individual is someone who is always in the process of becoming a part of and apart from a given cultural context. The individual has the ability to evaluate phenomena relative to cultural context, and the resulting evaluation is put into a cultural frame of reference.