George Mason University
LRNG 764-001
FALL, 2001
Professor: Ann C. Baker, Ph.D.
Class Location: Room 257, Arlington campus
Class Time: Tuesday evenings, 7:05 9:35pm; August 28th December 4, 2001
Office: Finley Building, Room 216, Fairfax, VA 22030
Telephone: 703-993-3805
Fax: 703-993-3788
Office hours: By appointment
The multicultural implications within international trade, business, and economic development efforts are often under recognized and become major barriers to successful business, organizational, and trade negotiations. People involved in these efforts and negotiations bring multiple personal, social, and cultural identities into their work together. These diverse identities influence both their behavior and how they make sense of their experiences in ways that can either catalyze or impede learning.
One of the classic scholars of culture, Clifford Geertz (1973), says that he believed that each person is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning. (The Interpretation of Cultures. USA: Basic Books, A Division of Harper-Collins Publishers, p. 5). These webs among people from different cultures create complex interactions. This course is designed to foster more collaborative learning, innovation, and new knowledge creation in the highly multicultural environments of knowledge intensive, global economies and political systems.
The most progressive thinkers in the multiculturalism, pluralism, and diversity arenas suggest that cultural differences are rich resources for new opportunities rather than problems to be solved. One of these leaders, Taylor Cox (1997), describes diversity as a mix of people in one social system who have distinctly different, socially relevant group affiliations (p. 1). He then continues to offer us insight into what he means by social system, group affiliation, and socially relevancy by saying,
A social system may be defined on many levels: countries, cities, organizations, work teams, product markets, industry channels of distribution, and so on. Likewise, there are many kinds of group affiliations, such as gender, nationality, age cohort, levels or types of physiological abilities or disabilities, racioethnic identity, religion and the list goes on. A socially relevant group affiliation is simply one to which some meaning is often attached when people interact together When these group affiliations not only are socially relevant but also have cultural significance that is, when they differentiate groups based on behavioral norms, values, language, goal priorities, and tendencies toward certain ways of thinking or views of the world we speak of cultural diversity. (p. 1-2)
One of Coxs most recent books emphasizes the importance of professionals developing what he calls diversity competency. He describes this competency as creating a climate in which the potential advantages of diversity on organizational or group performance are maximized while the potential disadvantages are minimized (p. 2) (Cox, Taylor, Jr. & Beale, Ruby L. (1997). Developing competency to manage diversity: Readings, cases & activities. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., p. 1-2). One way to think about what course participants will gain during this semester together is to develop diversity or multicultural competency to increase learning.
Emphasis in this course will be on cultural differences at the interpersonal level, especially in international exchanges. These interpersonal interactions can create conflict and misunderstanding when the people involved do not have highly developed competency in working across cultural differences. The course emphasizes both theoretical perspectives and practical applications for bringing together people across diverse cultures into collaborative interactions that catalyze learning, innovation, and more successful trade and business exchanges.
My intention in the course is to jointly create with you a shared learning space where all participants can effectively integrate information and theory with your own experiences. This approach is used because it is the most effective form of adult learning (Kolb, 1984) and is congruent with the course content. David Kolb in his classic book, Experiential Learning, says, Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience (p. 38).
This approach shifts my role as the professor from being primarily a one-way purveyor of information to becoming more of a facilitator to create a receptive space and to offer varied stimuli for learning. While there will be lectures and an emphasis on the reading assignments, each class will also actively involve you and allow you to generate your own data about key concepts to be studied.
Since conversations are a fundamental medium for shared experiences and potentially a primary mode of learning, we will be attentive throughout the semester to how we are in conversation with each other and the kinds of conversations that might facilitate or impede learning in the class and in international business, trade, and political negotiations. Throughout all of your work in this course, you will be asked to share only what you are entirely comfortable sharing and are encouraged to feel free at any time to choose not to answer specific questions or to elaborate further, and as a group we all share responsibility in creating a psychologically safe, collaborative learning environment.
Thus, part of your role in this course is as an active creator of your own learning not as a passive recipient. Because your role involves shared leadership in the learning process and in creating a receptive learning space, your attendance and full participation in all group and class meetings is essential. It is especially important that you come prepared to fully participate in whatever activities have been scheduled as the nature of experiential learning embodies learning through the experience at hand and cannot be made up later.
Course requirements include a combination of reading of the texts, writing a cultural autobiography and organizational analysis, a group project, a sojourn experience, and your effort and participation in all course activities.
International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior (Fourth Edition), 2001,
by Nancy J. Adler. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western College Publishing.
The assignment will include a written essay. In this assignment, as in all work in this course and as mentioned above, you will be asked to share only what you are entirely comfortable sharing and are encouraged to feel free at any time to choose not to answer specific questions or to elaborate further whenever you choose.
Cultural autobiography recognizes that all people come from rich and varied contexts i.e., race, gender, ethnicity, class, religion, age and era born into, mental and physical abilities and disabilities, country and/or region or origin, language of origin, etc. Each of these aspects of these experiences influences our capacities as professionals.
This assignment will include a written essay describing:
· Your generational past (cultures of origin, country of origin, immigration patterns of your family, race, etc. if relevant and known, etc.). If you are adopted, please feel free to use the culture of origin of your adoptive family, and/or if you choose and have the information, the cultural backgrounds of your birth parent(s). Do whatever is comfortable and if none of these feels comfortable, please consult with me.
· Your immediate past and present. Moving from the above historical frame, focus your attention on your immediate past and present and your encounters with commonalities and differences centered around issues of race, class, gender and sexual orientation, and/or others, including during your growing up years and the years preceding your most recent employment/educational commitment. Include and describe situations in which you were either discriminated against or recall being the person who discriminated against another. Describe relevant experiences (including the emotional and intellectual facets of the situation), your interpretations and responses to the event(s), and analyze those experiences that you think have shaped your attitudes toward those that have been or are being discriminated against. Similarly, describe and analyze experiences or situations in which you have experienced privilege (racial, class, nationality, economic, etc.).
To complete this assignment, please write a paper that only I will read. Feel free to create a format that you are comfortable with. If writing chronologically serves your learning, do it that way. If using an episodic approach focusing on particular types of events or specific situations works better for you, that is fine. Do not try to give an entire autobiographical description of your life and background, but instead focus areas as described above.
This paper will be due during the first month of the semester. Details and due date will be given in the first class on Tuesday, August 28, 2001.
GROUP PROJECT AND
FACILITATION As a member of small groups (approximately 4-6 people), you
will focus your attention on the implications of a specific area of
multiculturalism or diversity. Details about this project will be talked
about in class.
SOJOURN EXPERIENCE Take a sojourn (visit or stay as temporary resident) into another culture that is FOREIGN to you. This means a stay of at least 3-4 hours in that culture (e.g., an afternoon or evening with a friend in their ethnic community; in a religious event or ceremony of a religion that you are not familiar with; go to a community or recreational event of a group that is completely different from you be creative). Be sure that you spend time in a place where:
We will brainstorm possible places for sojourn activities and ways to introduce yourself that are culturally appropriate and sensitive. After your sojourn, write a one to two page description of your experience demonstrating your acute observational skills, including your feelings while there and upon reflection, and including selected relevant concepts from one or more of the readings from this course. NOTE: It is vitally important that you do your sojourn no earlier than the second week of the semester. This will enable you to use our shared experiences to help you make the most of your learning. Due Date will be in November.
ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS OF A MULTICULTURAL/DIVERSITY
ISSUE Near the end of the semester, you will write an analysis of the
multicultural/diversity issue of your choosing from the perspective of the
implications for your current or most recent employment experience. You may want to consider your participation
in your group project/facilitation and/or your sojourn experience as part of
your research into this area. Specific
details will be talked about in class. Due Date will be near the end of the
semester.
EFFORT AND APPROACH USED - As the professor, I will complete this part of the evaluation after the final class based on observations and interactions relevant to the course over the semester. The criteria will include:
·
your efforts and approach throughout the course with an
emphasis on your inquiry more than your advocacy
·
your attendance and participation in class with an
emphasis on the importance of differing kinds of participation and
·
your efforts to practice specific behaviors that are
less well developed. For example,
speaking in class will need to be carefully self-monitored in ways that support
the mutuality of learning by all class members. While speaking in class is important, the amount of speaking time
needs to be balanced with the need for others to have air-time, the quality of
listening, efforts to build on the contributions of others, asking questions of
each other, reflection, thoughtfulness of comments, and other contributions
made to the creation of a mutual learning space. I do keep weekly notes on my observations to be used at the end
of the semester.
While writing is not the only way that these various areas can be demonstrated, demonstrating strong writing skills is an important part of any quality, highly regarded graduate program. And writing is an interative process that usually requires a number of drafts before submission. It is important that your written presentation of material be of a quality that supports the clearest expression of your ideas, as that is a critical component of professional life and professional work.
I suggest that students form small groups or pairs to assist in talking through ideas prior to writing papers, as well as assisting with proofreading and editing. This is a common professional and academic practice. Obviously, this does not mitigate responsibility for avoiding plagiarism of any kind.
For all written assignments, please submit them as double-space, 11-12cpi, word-processed hardcopies, and without extra folders or covers. Please do include a title page with your name, title, date, name of the assignment, and include page numbers on all pages. Also, always include a bibliography that gives citations of any sources you use other than your own ideas using either the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or some similar generally used approach.
Late submissions and significant variance in the recommended length of papers can substantially influence grades and should be discussed with me before or after a class prior to the date they are due. When final course determinations are borderline between two grades, final grades will be determined based upon class attendance and effort and participation as described above. For your course grade, the assignments and participation are weighted as follows:
Group Project.. 30%
Sojourn Experience.. . ... . 15%
Organizational Analysis Paper .30%