Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
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Unit 15
Intercultural Understanding
In this unit (to accompany SAPIENS podcast S6E8), students will learn about the importance of intercultural understanding. Culture impacts people’s speech, actions, and thoughts, and students will evaluate how understanding this is the first step to gaining intercultural competence. Students will explore challenges to intercultural understanding and learn how empathy, active listening, and dialogue all play a role.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the challenges to intercultural communication, such as stereotypes, ethnocentrism, and cultural misunderstandings.
- Distinguish the role of empathy, active listening, and dialogue in bridging the gap between cultural insiders and outsiders.
Sapiens articles
Are Colors Universal?
How do language, biology, and culture shape an individual’s experience of color? A journalist investigates the anthropological debate about whether color is a human universal.
Why Navajos Love Their Country Music
An anthropologist who is also a singer-songwriter explores how Southwestern Native bands shake up the notion of “cowboys and Indians.”
Keywords
View All in Heritage
![An image focuses on two hands of a statue in shadow coming together holding a white flower.]()
![People walk through a long, wide museum hallway with high arched ceilings and skylights framed by tall tan columns.]()
![A person wearing a dark blue shirt and a red umbrella hat walks through a lush field of tall green grasses.]()
![An old bucket coated in multicolored limestone sits in front of a limestone-covered wall out of which protrudes a faucet dripping water that falls into the bucket.]()
![The ruins of a gray stone building stand below a cerulean sky with fluffy white clouds.]()
![A black painted hand covered in red paint holds a skull figure decorated with floral patterns in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Painted white with black accents to resemble a skull, the face—and also gray hair and flower headband—of the person holding the skull are blurry in the background.Cindy Ord/Getty Images]()
Survival Notes
Black African women in former colonial centers such as London gesture to subversive ways of communicating with those imprisoned in archives across generations.
Spain’s Move to Decolonize Its Museums Must Continue
In early 2024, Spain’s culture minister announced that the nation would overhaul its state museum collections, igniting a wave of anticipation—and controversy.
It’s Time to Replace “Prehistory” With “Deep History”
A team of archaeologists working in Southeast Asia is pushing toward a deeper understanding of history that amplifies Indigenous and local perspectives to challenge traditional archaeological timelines.
Her Dirge
A poet-historian reflects on women’s labor carrying memories and the past.
How Colonialism Invented Food Insecurity in West Africa
Archaeological evidence and Oral Histories show people in what is today Ghana lived sustainably for millennia—until European colonial powers and the widespread trade of enslaved people changed everything.
Harvest Song
A poet-anthropologist celebrates relatedness across difference in a poem that honors the festivals of Navratri, Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Day of the Dead, and Halloween—all of which draw on otherworldly connections and mysteries.
View All in Ritual
![A black painted hand covered in red paint holds a skull figure decorated with floral patterns in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Painted white with black accents to resemble a skull, the face—and also gray hair and flower headband—of the person holding the skull are blurry in the background.Cindy Ord/Getty Images]()
![Massive vertical and horizontal stones stand in a field at night, with the sliver of a silver moon above.]()
![A person wearing a gray T-shirt and tan baseball cap pushes buttons on a camera that is attached to a tree in the forest.]()
![A child in a puffer coat squats in front of a memorial of flowers and various pictures of an owl, placing a piece of paper among the other objects.]()
![Taken from under the frond of a leafy overhang, waters near the shore of a beach gently ripple under the bright orange glow of the setting sun.]()
![Two people—one in a white T-shirt and the other in burgundy robes—work together to hang a string of white pieces of cloth with black writing on them.]()
Harvest Song
A poet-anthropologist celebrates relatedness across difference in a poem that honors the festivals of Navratri, Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Day of the Dead, and Halloween—all of which draw on otherworldly connections and mysteries.
The Distant Origins of a Stonehenge Stone
After two decades of research, scholars find that Stonehenge’s giant Altar Stone came from northeast Scotland.
Payangko, or Echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi)
After a 60-year haitus, an Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna was seen in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains. A poet-anthropologist reflects on the echidna’s message through the storied lens of the people of Yongsu Sapari.
What a Community’s Mourning of an Owl Can Tell Us
The outpouring of grief over New York’s Flaco the owl, who died recently, reveals how much attitudes toward these creatures have changed.
Bila Mwili
A poet-historian in Tanzania remembers those who have passed but who are still nearby.
Replacing Plastic Prayers With Biodegradable Blessings in the Himalayas
As synthetic prayer flags and scarves pollute the Himalayan region, a team of scholars and activists work to spread sustainable materials drawn from Indigenous knowledge.
View All in Communication
![Two people crouch down to create colorful chalk art on a street. Intricate designs and language characters surround a central circular moti]()
![Two pairs of scissors, two rocks, and two slips of paper rest on a pale-yellow surface.]()
![An officer dressed in black, wearing a baseball-style hat and balaclava, with a machine gun slung across his chest, stands before a gray concrete building.]()
![A person stands inside a moving flame of yellow light while sparks fly out in all directions. A second person stands on the left side holding an umbrella against the sparks.]()
![In a pitch-black environment, a person with black smudges on their face wears a fur pelt and holds a lit torch.]()
![On a wood-paneled floor, four barefoot people wearing different outfits in shades of red, yellow, and blue dance in front of a gray wall. Captured in motion, and therefore blurry, each has several of their dance moves overlapping and visible at once.]()
Tackling the Impossibility—and Necessity—of Counting the World’s Languages
A language scientist delves into historic and current efforts to catalog the planet’s 7,000-plus languages, uncovering colorful tales and Herculean challenges.
Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors Across the Red-Blue Divide
As toxic polarization deepens in the U.S., some global conflict prevention experts are now addressing political violence at home. An anthropologist shares three key insights from a community action program in Wisconsin.
When a Message App Became Evidence of Terrorism
Beginning in 2016, the Turkish government accused anyone with the messaging application ByLock of terrorism. An anthropologist investigates the risks of this kind of digital evidence.
A Call for Anthropological Poems of Resistance, Refusal, and Wayfinding
SAPIENS is seeking poetry submissions for a curated collection that will publish next year. Deadline: September 1, 2024.
How Accurate Is the Stone Age Thriller Out of Darkness?
An archaeologist with expertise in human origins assesses the accuracy of a 2022 film about Homo sapiens who encounter Neanderthals.
Making Anthropological Poetry Reel
In featuring three SAPIENS poems, students in a digital anthropology seminar infused video reels for Instagram with vivid history and powerful emotions.
Glossary
Intercultural
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That which occurs in or among two or more cultural groups.
Prejudice
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A preconceived negative attitude held toward a group.
Stereotype
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A belief, often negative, held about a group of people based on a particular characteristic.
Professor Talking Points
- Stereotyping is a cognitive association organizational process that involves making generalizations about people or groups based on a personal attribute or characteristic. Many stereotypes are negative, have long histories, and can vary based on context. Discuss how stereotypes form.
- When we encounter people from a culture different from our own, we may experience the anxiety that comes with uncertainty and newness. This type of anxiety is called intercultural communication apprehension and comes from real or imagined cultural differences, such as language, customs, or norms. It is often a fear of not knowing what to do or what to expect from a situation. Discuss intercultural communication apprehension, including what it is and how to manage it.
- Ethnocentrism is the process of evaluating other cultures and peoples through the standards and practices of your own culture. This can lead to the assumption that one culture may be superior to another and confuse “different” with “right.” Discuss the barrier of ethnocentrism and other obstacles to intercultural understanding.
- Active listening is a tool that can facilitate communication between people from different cultures, as it can help expel fears, negate misinterpretation, and create empathy. Discuss other tools that can help intercultural understanding.
Academic Articles
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Conklin, Alice, and Mireille Rosello. 2000. “Declining the Stereotype: Ethnicity and Representation in French Cultures.” Journal of Modern History 72 (2): 543–545.
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Tentori, Tullio. 1996. “Brainstorming on Intercultural Communication.” Current Anthropology 37 (5): 868.
Student Discussion Questions
- What are two ways we can become Other-oriented in terms of intercultural communication?
- What is a worldview? Give an example of your worldview.
- Describe two ways you can ethically adapt your communication style when immersed in a different one.
- What are two barriers to effective intercultural communication?
- What biases can exist when interacting with someone from a culture different from your own? How can tools like active listening, dialogue, and empathy help overcome these?
Activities
- Many people in the United States use and prefer a direct communication style, and verbal communication is emphasized over nonverbal. This is not the case in all cultures; in some, directness can be considered rude or aggressive. Create a scripted scenario in which a person interacts with someone from a culture that does not use or prefer direct communication. Discuss the disparity and how the situation may be worked out.
- Create a toolbox for an anthropologist to help with intercultural communication. For each tool, include a description and how the tool facilitates understanding.
Additional Resources
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Article: Stephen M. Croucher’s “Intercultural Communication: Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, Issues We Face”
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Book: Stephen Bochner’s Cultures in Contact: Studies in Cross-Cultural Interaction
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Video: Pellegrino Riccardi’s Tedx Talk “Cross Cultural Communication”
Unit By
Aimee L. Richards, Freedom Learning Group
Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
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Unit 16
Using Ethnographic Methods
