From Family Homes to Dangerous Hikes: Developing Intercultural Awareness through the Graphic Novel

The role of culture and intercultural awareness in the language classroom is not a new area of research in ESL/EFL, and its relative importance has shifted in different approaches and methods of foreign language teaching. Today, the goal of some English textbooks has transcended a pure linguistic and language training orientation as text developers have moved towards also teaching intercultural awareness. The development of intercultural awareness was presented as a key component in ensuring the success of the latest Colombian National Bilingual Programme 2015-2025 (NBP), and the textbook series English, Please! was promoted as a breakthrough in this context. This article presents the research analysis and findings of an exploratory study based on the ambitious task set forth in the NBP policy on English textbooks. We examine the theoretical constructs adopted by the National Ministry of Education and by using, both quantitative and qualitative, analysis we explore the intercultural awareness activities presented in the series. At the end, we suggest that although the series is an important addition to existing materials in the area, it presents an overly reductionist and instrumentalist use of the concept of intercultural awareness.

In South Africa the segregation laws of the apartheid years had an impact on contacts and interactions between cultural groups, which led to prejudice, intolerance and painful intercultural experiences. The influence of the past is still evident in present-day South African society, despite greater mobility between different cultural groups. This paper reports on four research studies that investigated how social work and the arts together can explore ways to facilitate contact between diverse groups that will lead to positive experiences. The aim of these studies was to create an opportunity to develop intercultural awareness through joint music-making in an attempt to address prejudice and intolerance. The paper will firstly discuss how a transdisciplinary approach can be utilised. Secondly, the paper posits that making music together is a way to assist diverse groups to explore their own cultural understandings, to ‘hear the voices’ of other cultures, and to move towards greater intercultural awareness that could enhance tolerance in a diverse society. Thirdly, the hermeneutical perspective will be presented as an aspect of the process to support the development of awareness between diverse groups. Concluding recommendations focus on how making music together can become a form of intercultural social work.

This article analyzes the perceptions of two undergraduate learners’ regarding the educational impact of a collaborative map making project in the context of a summer study abroad program in France, focused on language learning. Over the eight-week long program, students created a digital map with textual and visual annotations that helped them to reflect on their prior associations with a location or landmark in the host country, the associations that members of the host country had with this location, and finally their own experience after visiting the location. The objective of this project was to help students to experience a more nuanced sense of place, to articulate imaginative mobility, and, as a result, to develop an increased level of intercultural awareness. The participants’ reflections after the end of the program suggest that through the engagement with the tasks associated with the project students engaged in imaginative mobility and developed a more nuanced sense of place. In particular, the experience of eliciting perspectives from local informants had a positive impact on their development of intercultural awareness.

Muscularity is an ever-growing concern and desire for both men and women in modern society. When we think of muscular desires we are instantly drawn to images of large, lean, attractive physiques. A want for a muscular physique, however, is potentially more complex and may be interpreted and expressed differently by various individuals. To better understand this potential diversity, the purpose of this current thesis was to explore the personal meanings of muscularity in those invested in weight training. The research questions that helped address this aim were: What different muscular projects are the participants invested in? How do the participants frame their muscularity in the context of their lives and identities? How do the participants’ stories of muscular desire develop over time? Three qualitative studies were conducted to answer these questions; an autoethnography, a life-history study, and an ethnography. Across the studies, 22 participants (including myself) were interviewed and shared the narratives that framed their muscular desires. Additionally, I conducted 16 months of participant observations in two weight lifting gyms. Collecting rich qualitative data from myself and others in different weight training subcultures provided an insight into the personal experiences, the different muscular projects, and the identity-related meanings associated with muscularity. The first study presents an autoethnography that shares my relationship with muscularity and how a muscular physique became intertwined with a fluid sense of masculinity that permeated several social identities. A strong muscular physique was engrained in my developing masculine identity. This construction of masculinity was initially guided by my observations and interactions with my father and was further shaped by the social comparisons and experiences I faced in different social fields (e.g., sport and the gym). Building muscle became a resource and form of masculine capital that helped me construct my masculinity and address any related conflicts within multiple contexts, such as a rugby player, gym user, and a personal trainer. The autoethnography provides a personal insight into the development of my muscular desires and their role in constructing and resolving various masculinity-infused identities. The life-history study shares the stories of 10 male weight trainers. The men appeared to frame their muscular desires within a masculine performance narrative. Like my story, within these men’s masculine performances, muscularity was crucial source of masculine capital with which they could construct and act out desired masculine-infused identities (e.g., as men, rugby players, and weight trainers). Additionally, the life-history study presents the different muscular projects that these men invested in, which placed varying emphasis on muscular appearance and functionality. The life-history study also expands on the idea of identity conflicts presented in the autoethnography study and shares 3 realignment narratives that reflected attempts to overcoming threats to masculinity (e.g., injury) and reinstating an overall masculine performances. The life-history study proposes the different narratives men may construct to maintain, protect, and perform their muscular masculine identities The final ethnographical study demonstrates the sociocultural processes that shaped different subcultural muscular projects and facilitated the construction of distinctive training identities epitomised by varying emphases on muscular appearance and functionality. Additionally, the ethnography shared 3 socially dependent narrative themes (internalist, compensator, and promoter) that represented the meanings assigned to muscularity within the participants’ identity performance narratives. The different narrative themes applied to their performance narratives allowed the participants to make sense of their muscular desires in multiple social contexts and draw on muscularity as a form of identity capital. Making sense of their muscularity as a resource for internal strength, compensation, and self-promotion facilitated the construction, mastery, and coherent performance of their multiple identities both inside and outside the weight training environment. The current thesis contributes to the literature by suggesting that muscularity desires consist of different muscular projects, which have many, broader, identity-related meanings than existing research and conceptualisations may portray. The building of muscularity appears to be driven by more than superficial aesthetic reasons and not restricted to atavistic masculine identities, as is apparent in existing muscularity literature. Instead the current thesis findings propose that muscularity is a versatile source of identity capital with which individuals can construct, resolve, and perform multiple identities in various social contexts (e.g., occupational, parental, and gendered). It also apparent that the narratives that frame the participants’ muscular projects and desires are socially constructed over their life course by familial role models (e.g., the father) and the processes within their social fields (e.g., subcultural heroes). The various socially constructed identity narratives and meanings demonstrated in the current studies suggest that people’s relationship with muscularity cannot be generalised, which too often is the goal of existing contemporary muscle research. Instead we could benefit from embracing diversity and understanding the broad narratives that encapsulate the different meanings people assign to a muscular physique.

In this article, our focus is on the methodological issues in taking a situative approach to studying the interconnected development of motivation, identity, and learning in multiple social contexts. We illustrate our description with data acquired from a cross-context, longitudinal, ethnographic study of novice teachers’ learning, motivation, and identity development (Horn, Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 10(3), 201–239 2008; Nolen et al., Cognition and Instruction, 29(1), 88–122, 2011; Nolen et al. 2009; Ward et al., International Journal of Educational Research, 50(1), 14–20, 2011). We focus our methodological discussion on structuring longitudinal interviews and the interdependence of interview and observational techniques in understanding motivation in social contexts, including the methodological challenges inherent in ethnographic work. One challenge we consider in depth is accounting for the interview as a social context in which motivation and identity develop as learning occurs and how this challenge is particularly important to address in longitudinal work. We end by raising some additional methodological issues in studying motivation, identity, and learning from a situative perspective.

The paucity of intercultural interactions among students from culturally diverse backgrounds at university and off campus is widely documented in the literature. A review of this empirical work, however, reveals narrow conceptualisations of the construct of intercultural interactions. Intercultural interactions are seldom conceptualised as part of complex, dynamic activity systems, and across multiple social contexts. Yet, intercultural interactions represent unique relational, socio-emotional and socio-cultural activities with their own, specific underlying cognitive, motivational and emotional dynamics. It is posited that activity theory (e.g. Engestrom in Journal of Education and Work 14(1):133–156, 2001) provides a useful framework for interpreting students’ intercultural experiences, because of its emphasis on the evolving and complex interrelations between individuals and their surroundings—conceptualised as activity systems. The multiple contexts angle further stresses the overlapping and/or embedded nature of the activity systems that individuals simultaneously participate in. A series of empirical studies that incorporated quantitative methodologies for identifying meaningful patterns, and qualitative methodologies for gaining experiential insights into students’ intercultural experiences across multiple social contexts (i.e. formal on campus and informal, off campus) is presented. Methodological and conceptual issues related to studying the dynamics of motivational, cognitive and emotional aspects of intercultural interactions in activity systems and multiple contexts are addressed.

> Member states of the Council of Europe have acknowledged the importance of education for citizenship and have passed a number of resolutions concerning European citizenship and the need to promote democratic values, social justice and human rights. Yet there remains a degree of ambivalence over citizenship education and its relationship to the development of various identities, including personal and national identities. This paper examines the experiences of student teachers from a variety of European countries and the impact of a period of study abroad in another European country on their development of intercultural awareness, national identities and perceptions of how we might best educate young people for participation in democratic life. It considers the implications for teacher education.

Cultivating learners’ multimodal communication skills and their intercultural awareness is necessary for effective collaboration. With this aim, a translanguaging dual language (TDL) course was developed at a Japanese multilingual university drawing on the pedagogy of multiliteracies (PoM) and translanguaging. The research questions this study addressed were: (1) What kinds of teaching and learning activities can be provided to allow students to negotiate and co-create knowledge? (2) How do students in a tertiary TDL course engage with the PoM? In the course, role-play videos were made by students to demonstrate approaches to communication with their classmates from various backgrounds. A multimodal textual analysis of the video data was conducted. The findings suggest that the course fostered students’ capability of engaging and negotiating locally situated communication strategies using various semiotic resources including translanguaging. This article also suggests pedagogical implications for student-oriented classrooms that allow space for students’ negotiation and co-construction of knowledge.

Students of religious development in youth tend to focus on characteristics of the child or adolescent and perhaps those of their parents. Although often reflecting standard disciplinary practices, this approach is also often the result of data limitations. This study used longitudinal data from adolescents, parents, friends, schools, and communities to examine the role of social and religious context on the development of public and subjective religiosity in adolescents. Employing data from 2 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we found that parents and friends strongly influenced the religious service attendance habits of adolescents and that these, as well as school context, shaped how important religion is in adolescents' lives. County-level influences appeared minimal. The results affirmed an ecological approach to the study of religious development in youth, one that considers the multiple social contexts in which youth live.

There is an emerging call for social scientists to pay greater attention to the social and cultural contexts of fishing and fishers. A resulting literature is evolving which focuses on individual life experiences, particularly relating to entering the fishing occupation, and what these might mean for the future sustainability of the fishing industry. However, the ways in which these lives are linked and intergenerationally connected remains somewhat of a blindspot. This article considers the potential of a lifecourse approach to help us better understand how fishers accumulate, utilise and share capital(s) in getting onto and moving along the ‘fishing ladder’. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative research with fishing families on the Llŷn peninsula small‐scale fishery in north Wales (UK) the article explores how there are multiple social contexts from which ‘prospective fishers’ can begin their fishing career and which differentially (re)shape how they can accumulate capital over time. Later on in the lifecourse, fishers (re)negotiate their fishing identities in relation to the lives of others, within transitions such as parenthood as well as with older age. The article's findings offer a much‐needed temporal dimension to our understanding of fishing lives and what it means to be a ‘good fisher’.

The language classroom as a space for reflection, interaction, and enactment calls for language teaching and learning that makes meaning and prepares intercultural communicators who value local knowledge, are sensitive to diversity, and are aware of their global community. This work aims to examine the role of a pedagogy of multiliteracies in the development of pre-service teachers' intercultural awareness. This study was conducted with a group of 12 pre-service teachers at a state university in Colombia. It was based on a pedagogy of multiliteracies, through the knowledge processes, approached from a qualitative interpretive case study perspective. The findings indicate that connecting personal experiences to those of others through global literacies and multimodal tasks helped develop intercultural awareness in relation to issues of ethnicity, gender, physical ability, and social class, thus expanding participants' limited nationalist perspective and taking them to embrace a more intersectional view of others.

Educational disadvantage is a multilevel and multifactorial phenomenon, with a myriad of contributing factors having been identified within the social contexts inhabited by the student from a lower socioeconomic status (SES) background. Irish research has accumulated a comprehensive body of empirical evidence on the factors operating within family, school and societal contexts but less attention has been paid to the role that the neighbourhood might have in contributing to the under-achievement of students from lower SES backgrounds. This study employed data from the 9 and 17/18-year-old cohorts of the Growing Up in Ireland survey to explore whether the SES of the neighbourhood within which a student lives makes a significant contribution to the prediction of academic achievement over and above the SES of the family and school. A series of multilevel models demonstrated the additive effects of social contexts on academic achievement in both samples. Each social context provided a unique, statistically significant contribution to the prediction of academic achievement, with smaller contributions made by more distal contexts. These findings support an understanding of educational disadvantage as a phenomenon that is perpetuated within multiple social contexts and suggest that strategies to tackle educational disadvantage should take a pan-contextual perspective.

Back in 1979, Urie Bronfenbrenner proposed his ecological model of human development, a multi-level system which describes how individuals relate with their multiple social contexts. In 1991, Carl Ratner proposed a modification of Bronfenbrenner—s basic model in which the layers are pictured as interpenetrating. This illustrates how the macrosystem passes through an individual—s exosystems and microsystems and how the impacts of all these systems influence the development of an individual. However, although both versions of the model illustrate well how individuals are connected with their multiple contexts they are still models that have a monolithic image of society. What happens in the case of ethnic minority children and young people who are members of a pluralistic society?

With the rapid development of computer technology, videoconferencing has been widely applied for social and educational purposes. Issues relevant to the use of videoconferencing in second-language instruction, such as the development of intercultural awareness, the promotion of collaborative learning and L2 oral communication skills, and the enhancement of learning motivation and speaking confidence, have been researched. Few studies, however, focus on teacher perspectives. To fill the gap, this study explores how 40 native English-speaking teachers perceived videoconferencing in learning English by elementary school students in Taiwan. Data consisted of teacher responses to a post-videoconference survey with open-ended questions. Through qualitative, inductive, and interpretive analysis of the data, the study identified three emerging themes: uneven student performance, technical issues, and suggestions for the videoconferencing activity. The study contributes to our understanding of the videoconferencing experience of language teachers and broadens our understanding of implementing videoconference activities. Further research could explore teacher metacompetence (Guichon, 2009) by analyzing videotaped videoconferencing sessions.

This systematic literature review investigates the impact of integrating multicultural literature (ML) on the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) language education. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, the review examined literature published from 2013 to 2023, analyzing the benefits, and challenges in using ML to enhance ICC in language education. 16 articles were selected based on predetermined screening criteria. The analysis identified four main themes: student engagement and attitudes, development of intercultural awareness and critical thinking, enhancement of language proficiency, and the role of teachers and pedagogical strategies. ML was found to significantly enhance students’ ICC by exposing them to diverse cultural narratives, fostering critical thinking, empathy, and open-mindedness. However, challenges such as limited availability of multicultural texts, teacher preparedness and training, assessment and evaluation difficulties, and cultural sensitivity and ethical concerns were identified. Addressing these challenges was crucial to maximizing the benefits of ML for ICC development in language education. This study provided a comprehensive overview of current research on ML in EFL/ESL education, offering insights for educators, curriculum designers, and policymakers to enhance intercultural competence through effective integration of multicultural literature. Future research directions were also discussed to guide further exploration in this critical area.