Cultural criticality

Critical Incidents

Study the following four incidents and select from the four possible answers given the most likely reason as to what may have happened. The discussions of the alternative explanation can be found in the answer key. All of the alternatives should be considered, for two reasons. First, in many cases, two (or even more) of the alternative explanations may be considered correct or appropriate. After all in everyday life people do not find only one exact explanation for every incident they encounter. Second, successful intercultural adjustments depends on the individual's ability to reject incorrect explanations as well as find correct ones. Before checking your answer, explain how you arrived at this answer.

Whilst doing the exercise can you think of any similar incidents that you may have encountered?

Critical Incident 1. The Assessment of His Efforts

Tal was an African student from Gambia who recently began a postgraduate business administration course at a British university. It was the first time he had been to a foreign country, but having won a Gambian scholarship to attend university he was confident of his ability to do well. He applied himself enthusiastically to his studies and felt he had few difficulties with the material presented. However, when he received the first assessment of his papers and contributions to tutorials, he was disconcerted to find they were not very favourable. he was told that although his ideas were ' interesting' he did not keep to the topic, brought in too many irrelevancies and did not present his arguments in a logical manner. Tal was puzzled by this, as his work seemed logical and relevant to him, so he sought advice from Tony, one of his British classmates. Tony showed him some of his papers that had been given good grades, but this only increased Tal's confusion, because Tony's work seemed to Tal to be insubstantial and dull.

How would you explain to Tal's professors the origins of his confusion as to what is expected of him?

1. Gambian and British modes of thinking and communicating are very different.

2. Tal probably did not have the intellectual capacity to tackle postgraduate course

3. Tal's Gambian education did not prepare him for the more rigorous British educational system

4. Tal was probably going through a confusing settling-in period, and with time would produce more organised work.

How did you arrive at your answer?

Kinesic

Movement of the body (head, arms, legs, etc.).
The initial example from the health centre in Ethiopia was a problem caused by a kinesic sign being used which had different meaning cross culturally. Another example, the British gesture of slitting one's throat implying 'I've had it' or 'I'm in trouble,' conveys quite a different message in Swaziland. It means 'I love you.'

· What does slitting your throat in your culture mean?

· How do you say 'I love you'?

British people make no distinction between gesturing for silence to an adult or to a child. A British person will put one finger to the lips for both, while an Ethiopian will use only one finger to a child and four fingers for an adult. To use only one finger for an adult is disrespectful. On the other hand, Ethiopians make no distinction in gesturing to indicate emphatic negation. They shake their index finger from side to side to an adult as well as to a child, whereas this gesture is used only for children by the British.

· How do you gesture for silence in your culture?

· How do you gesture and emphatic no? Is it the same for adults and for children?

Drawing in the cheeks and holding the arms rigidly by the side of the body means 'thin' in Amharic. Diet-conscious US Americans and British people feel complimented if they are told that they are slim and so may naturally assume that to tell an Ethiopian friend this is also complimentary. Yet in Ethiopia and a number of other countries, this is taken pejoratively, as it is thought better to be heavy-set, indicating health and status and enough wealth to ensure the two.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 827