How Adolescence Should Be Given Opportunities For Communication Among Individuals From Different Cultures

Children and young people can now learn and understand about different cultures and beliefs through the media and within their own school and by talking openly and positively about race, religion, ethnicity and cultural comparisons and differences will only benefit children in their understanding and development of a healthy social attitude.

ASSIGNMENT: Achieving competence as an interpersonal communicator in a diverse society is necessary to your personal and professional success. One way to enhance our understanding of interpersonal communication as a relationship-building activity is to engage in first hand dialogue with people from cultures other than your own. This assignment gives you the opportunity to engage in the dual perspective – honoring the perspective of the person with whom you are communicating as well as honoring your own perspective. You are also able to contrast your worldview with the perspective of someone with a different life experience than your

Friendship is one of the most valuable components in life. Friendship has the ability to change lives in a positive way. Friendship changes people’s views on life to a more positive outlook. “True friendship is when someone knows you better than yourself and takes a position in your best interests in a crisis. Friendship goes beyond sharing time together, and it is long lasting.” (Friends.com). As we spend a lot of time with our friends, friendship opens our minds to different ways of viewing the world. Unfortunately, sometimes strong barriers may be placed by those who see two people’s friendship as a threat; since people are influenced by their friends, friendship could make people question what

In our world of expanding technology and shrinking geography, people of different cultures have increasing frequency of contact and need for effective communication on a daily basis. Whether through travel, immigration, or international business, having the ability to communicate across many different cultures is an advantage in and of itself. Speaking a different language is an obvious obstacle to intercultural communication, but a greater and more difficult hurdle is to “speak” a different culture. To understand and comprehend and even apply these tiniest

Because communication between two people of different cultures is very challenging, there has been extensive research/studies conducted on this topic. This idea was also very interesting to me because I attended a highly diverse high school, in which we had a Global Studies program where international students were invited to come and learn at our school. The immersion of the different cultures was very difficult to adapt to at first because it was new to a lot of us students who have never attended a school where international students were amongst us in the halls, but as the days went on it became normal to me.

Today, we live in a culturally diverse society due to globalization. As our world grows, expands and become increasingly more interconnected, the need for effective interpersonal communication among differing cultures has become apparent. When people from different cultures interact with one another there is intercultural communication because different cultures create different interpretation and expectations about what is seen as competent behaviors that will enable the construction of shared meanings.

As a new student coming into this class we might have wondered what interpersonal communication was. However, I believe by now we all have a better understanding of what it means to communicate amongst ourselves. We all, or at least most of us were strangers at the start of class. However, through exercises and discussions we have become open with each other and learned a little along the way. Something as simple as our shared interests such as superhero movies or Star Wars trivia has opened up discussions we might not have had otherwise as a group. Our perceptions of each other have changed since that first awkward day playing a cheesy board game (Alder, Rosenfeld, Proctor II, 2013, p. 106-139). As we practiced our communication skills many of us have developed a stronger self-concept as well as boosted our self-esteems (Alder, Rosenfeld, Proctor II, 2013, p. 66-67). We also used social comparisons in our class intended or not (Alder, Rosenfeld, Proctor II, 2013, p. 69). We compared our backgrounds, both cultural, ethnic, as well as socio economic standing. Some of these comparisons come from what we learned as children to believe, while others are from what we have learned in life. This is what has intrigued me the most in class. The facts that we as a “civilized” world still have not come that far at all. Women are still for the most part second-class citizens, hate is taught to our children, and language still hasn’t evolved to where there are no

The term culturally constructed means that adolescence is not solely a biological state or condition that young adults go through on their journey to adulthood, being culturally constructed means that our culture around us determines at what age we enter adolescence as well as some of the changes in our life that happen during that time (lecture two ). To me I think a good example of adolescence being culturally constructed is in the film we watched stand by me were the boys felt like to be a man or to be accepted in their society as a man they had to do something heroic as an example in the movie they had to go find the body of the young boy that went missing and this would make them heroes and their community and people would view them no

In elementary school, the first level of education, children learn crucial social skills. For the first time, they begin to come in contact with other kids from different backgrounds and cultures. Children learn how to share, communicate and develop relationships at this early stage in their

A classroom with students from different backgrounds is very beneficial as it helps learners understand and appreciate cultural differences, as they develop responsiveness of their cultural beliefs. Students are allowed to break social and ethnicity barriers in the classroom, which will ultimately lead to breaking them in their daily lives. “This requires open and honest discussion about difference, and an institutional respect for people of all backgrounds and abilities. In inclusive schools, the establishment of such a climate benefits everyone by fostering an environment where students and their families are valued for who they are.” (Inclusive Schools Network). Consequently, being able to understand one another from different backgrounds will aid in maintaining friendships in the future of this sort, and resolve any lingering conflict, ultimately benefiting the future.

Intercultural communication normally frames our cultural understanding in a way that will not undermine hope and the new ways of understanding each other. If we don’t solve this on time, our future generations will also condemn the societies for prolonged war and suffering with regard to effects of intercultural communication.

Previous researchers have found that for a person to achieve better and more effective communication competence, it is necessary to develop skills that allow an appropriate participation in specific situations. The ability to listen, ask questions, and express concepts or ideas effectively is an important part of communication competence. Intercultural communication presents an unexplored and challenging field that needs to be understood for a better development in communication. (Dillon and McKenzie, 1998). The variables of listening depend on the different perceptions that a person obtains through their cultural background. Furthermore, culture often affects the structure of consciousness in the act of listening. When a person seeks to

Intercultural communication is commonly explained as an interaction between people of 'different cultures whether defined in terms of racial, ethnic or socioeconomic differences.' Human communication consists of verbal and nonverbal messages (language and gestures) which are shaped by gender, social class or culture. Thus, what perimeters define the intercultural exchange and what primary messages do we need or try to convey?

Intercultural communication competence refers to the ability of an individual to adapt and communicate appropriately and effectively across a wide array of cultural contexts. That is to say, for an individual to be considered an intercultural communicator they must understand other’s cultures as well as they understand their own, and apply this understanding to communication (Chen 1-2). With the increasing diversity at the workplace, school and other social settings, it has become increasingly important to learn how to communicate with people from a diverse array of cultures. More importantly, adapting to a more effective intercultural communication competence model provides us with learning opportunities occasioned by the interaction with people from other backgrounds. The intercultural communication competence model comes with some key components including tolerance for uncertainty, self-knowledge, and motivation. The greatest and most important of these aspects is motivation. An individual must be willing to foster relationships with people from a different cultural background. If an individual lacks the willingness to promote intercultural relationships, then other aspects of the intercultural communication model become moot.

"We didn 't all come over on the same ship, but we 're all in the same boat."- Bernard Baruch