Learning about culture(s) via intercultural digital exchange: opportunities, challenges, and grey areas

Abstract

ABSTRACT Twenty-six participants aged 12–18 living in four countries were interviewed about their experiences participating in a digital exchange programme and learning about cultures. Abductive analysis of the transcripts suggests that social media-type learning formats offer particular opportunities for young people to: (1) engage with different cultures and feel a sense of connection to people with different cultural affiliations to their own; (2) expand their view of culture as a complex, multifaceted, fluid phenomenon; (3) consider or reconsider their existing understandings of culture(s) in ways that may involve upending stereotypes; and (4) situate their own lives, identities, and values relative to those of other young people and reflect on how they themselves have been influenced by cultural forces. However, educators should also be attentive to the challenges of what we call the ‘Three O’s’ – overgeneralisation, overconfidence, and othering – as well as several grey areas that require skilful and thoughtful navigation.