Course Title
Intercultural Communication

Teaching Team
Warren Carter and Sandra Sudweeks

Curriculum

The goal of this course is to facilitate student understanding of the following:

• the influence of culture on self and other perception, differing world views, communication & relationship and social power processes;
• themselves and others as cultural beings;
• prejudice and discrimination processes and how to effectively manage intercultural conflicts;
• how to improve intercultural competence;
• how to contribute to the creation of health intercultural communities in diverse settings.

This course approaches the study of communication and intercultural relationship development from an intergroup, culture-general perspective. Communication is examined in both cross-cutlural and intercultural settings. Theories of communication are integrated with theories of cultural difference to explain and predict communication behavior.

Students will work in cooperative groups, studying cultural and ethnic variability in verbal/nonverbal communication, perceptions and attributions, ethics and values, prejudice and discrimination, intercultural relationship processes, development of intercultural communication competence, principles of intercultural community building, and effective self-reflection. Students will be introduced to video production and editing processes and will produce video diary "rough drafts" of intercultural experiences, experiments, research and/or relationship development.