Silvia Norte Mercade, Anglo-American University, Prague, Czech Republic

During the months I spent in the United States, I not only got to know the American culture better, but a lot of other cultures from my international friends. At first, there were some attitudes or behaviors that I did not understand, as in my country those acts would be unthinkable. However, as time went on, I was able to set my culture aside when it came to understanding other cultures. This development is described by Bennett (2004) in his work Becoming Interculturally Competent.

Bennett (2004) establishes that people become more interculturally competent by entering different stages. Those stages can be grouped into ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism. Ethnocentrism can be defined as when a person uses their own culture as the only basis for perceiving events. During this period, there are phases like denial, defense, and finally minimization. Once past this stage, a person enters ethnorelativism, which allows individuals to organize their perceptions into different cultural categories, and they become more interculturally sensitive. In this stage, there is acceptance, adaptation, and integration.

It has become very clear to me that studying abroad helps to develop ethnorelativism and, by extension, intercultural competence. Living in an international environment has made me improve my intercultural communication, which allows me to see a person from another culture as equally complex as someone from my own culture. Furthermore, I am also able to take a culturally different perspective in different situations. In my opinion, the morepeople are aware of each other’s culture, the more their intercultural competence increases.

The question is, how can we get to know other cultures? Well, in my case, that would be by asking my international friends why they do what they do, trying to leave aside my judgments. Of course, this might not be easy at the beginning. But once you get to know other people’s culture, the more curious you are. As Bennett (2004) points out, this understanding eventually leads to an intercultural worldview.

Reference

Bennett, M. J. (2004). Becoming interculturally competent. In J. Wurzel (Ed.), Toward multiculturalism: A reader in multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. 62–77). Intercultural Resource Corporation.