Digital Commons Network^™

Languages Lost And Found – A New Role For Language Educators, Beverly Burkett Mat, Visiting Assistant Professor, Elka Todeva Phd, Professor, Leslie Turpin Phd, Adjunct Faculty

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

For a number of years there has been growing concern about the loss of the world’s linguistic diversity and the connection between language loss, culture loss, and environmental degradation. In part this has been linked to the effects of globalization and the spread of English as a lingua franca. This unprecedented phenomenon has given rise to further concerns that English is turning into a ‘killer language’ and that teachers of English are agents of imperialism, western thought and ideology. This has been countered with the notion that English is a tool for empowerment and as such should be viewed as …

The Bolivian State In Transition, Fernando García Phd, Associate Academic Dean For Latin America

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

This paper will look into some structural features of the Bolivian state-society complex, highlighting the changes now taking place under the government of Evo Morales. Particular attention will be paid to the degree to which the older Liberal-Prebendary state form is actually been replaced by a new state form. Utilizing a framework that looks at long-term historical and structural changes, the author will explore the actual content and current course of the Bolivian transition toward a “socialist horizon”, as Vicepresident Alvaro García Linera recently announced. While still preliminary, the results of this macro-analysis of Bolivian reality will serve as a …

Hands-On Or On-Hands: An Approach To Fine Arts Learning In The Senegalese Context, Souleye Diallo Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Everything in Arts is communal and participatory as the stage in the African context is different. There is always an exchange between performers and the audience. Our students during their hands-on workshop on Batik, Visual arts and music and dance share those wonderful moment s with their families the community of artists working with them. As stated by one British artist John Ruskin “Fine Art is that in which the hand, the head and the heart of man goes together”. Most of our students during these workshops find Fine arts as integrating and a liberating tool to culture learning. During …

Transforming Society, Transforming Leadership, Aqeel Tirmizi Phd, Associate Professor, Azim Ahmad Phd, Academic Director, Marla Solomon Edd, Professor, Ken Williams Edd, Assistant Professor

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

For several years, SIT Graduate Institute worked with the Ford International Fellows Program (IFP) to provide IFP fellows worldwide with training and reflection on their engagement as leaders for social justice. Out of this effort grew a conceptual framework on “leadership for social justice” and a capacity-building resource manual derived from the Leadership for Social Justice (LSJ) Institutes we carried out. Since that time, a few members of the LSJ project team have been undertaking further research on social justice leadership from varied perspectives. In addition, SIT Study Abroad Academic Director Azim Khan is an IFP and LSJ Institute alumnus, …

Multicultural Competence: Exploring And Monitoring Its Development, Alvino Fantini Phd, Professor Emeritus

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Educators engaged in international, intercultural educational programs are responsible for maximizing the benefits of these experiences for participants. This requires a clear focus on the development of multicultural (or intercultural) competencies (MCC) in participants if students are to deal effectively and appropriately across cultures.

This session explores the development and assessment of MCC abilities. It is based on findings from an international research effort that examined a comprehensive construct of MCC, developed a tool for its assessment, and identified intercultural outcomes in participants as well as their hosts engaged in an intercultural exchange.

The session also explores the nature of …

Educating Policy Advocates – Current And Potential Roles For Sit And World Learning, Jeff Unsicker Phd, Professor, Charlie Curry-Smithson Phd, Professor

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

The session will focus on ways that we are now engaged and could become more engaged in educating students and civil society leaders to influence the policies of governments, international organizations, corporations and other institutions of political and economic power – in local, national and global contexts. Presentations will focus on the Policy Advocacy concentration, courses and field-based learning within the SIT Graduate Institute; Civil Society and Governance programs managed by World Learning; any similar courses or programs connected with SIT Study Abroad (e.g., host country universities and capacity building organizations, such as the Democracy Center in Bolivia); and our …

The Meaning Of The Global Crisis And "Recovery" For Study Abroad: What Are We Preparing Students For?, Gustavo Esteva Phd, Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

There is universal consensus that we are at the end of an historical cycle. But the consensus vanishes when you try to identify the corpse: we cannot accept that it is not just another business cycle, as the pundits still proclaim, but neither can we assume the end of globalization, neoliberalism, capitalism or the modern era, as many critics currently argue. Raised with a promise of infinite prosperity, beyond business cycles, at 'the end of history' after the marriage of capitalism and liberal democracy, our students have suddenly entered an era of decreasing expectations and increasing uncertainty. How to reformulate …

Knowing Your Community: Fostering Biodiversity Awareness In Our Students’ Daily Existence, Tony Cummings Bs, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

There are strong arguments suggesting that developing students’ sensitivity to local biodiversity and conservation issues is as important as emphasizing an understanding of global conservation issues happening in faraway lands (Ehrenfeld, 2009). Many students arrive at a Study Abroad destination, with a good understanding of theory, but with little field experience at home. Environmental educators in Study Abroad are able to use the novelty and grandeur of our exotic destinations to systematically teach students the patterns and processes of ecological and human communities at our sites, while inspiring a sense of place in our students. By immersing students in the …

Large Mining Projects In The Amazon, Gustavo Negreiros Phd, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

In addition to my work coordinating the SIT study abroad program Amazon Resource Management and Human Ecology since 1998, I pursue personal interests in the relation of modern development projects and the social environmental conditions faced by local populations of the region. In 2005, I evaluated the environmental licensing and implementation of Alcoa´s (Aluminum Company of America) mine operation in Juruti, western Pará State, which started operation in 2009. I was invited by the communities impacted and the different actors involved to participate in the team in charge of developing methodologies to valuate the social-environmental externalities faced by the communities, …

Health Care In Aymara Women In The North Of Chile, Rossana Testa Phd, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Background: In Chile the most important indigenous population lives in a determined territory, we found Mapuche people in the south and the Aymara people in the north of the country. The majority of the indigenous people live in the urban zones. However, the indigenous people that live at the rural areas are who conserve their traditional medicine practices.

The region of Arica and Parinacota is the northern region of Chile and has the largest concentration of the Aymara indigenous group in all of Chile.

At the rural areas are the women whom most attended at the public health system, especially …

Teaching And Learning Process On Renewable Energy And Sustainable Development, Caitlin Brotzmann Ba, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Though the global situation is complex and daunting, education for sustainable development attempts to empower students with the knowledge, values, and ability not only to understand but also to act upon that understanding so that they might create a world in harmony with the environment. In summer 2009, 19 university students from North America came to Iceland to study renewable energy on the SIT Study Abroad (a program of World Learning) program ―Iceland: Renewable Energy, Technology, and Resource Economics.‖ The students traveled around the country, stayed with host families, underwent intensive coursework, visited power plants and policy firms, and conducted …

Strengthening Civil Society And Community Capacity To Respond To Hiv/Aids, Blanka Homolova Ma, Senior Hiv/Aids Specialist, Jennifer Whatley Ma, Senior Technical Specialist For Civil Society And Governance Programs

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

The Global Fund and PEFPAR have increased resources for preventing, treating, and caring for HIV/AIDS and dramatically changed the ways in which the HIV/AIDS epidemic is addressed internationally. While attention often focuses on the roles of government and health workers, national civil society organizations (CSOs) and local communities are gaining recognition and key roles to play in responding to HIV/AIDS in many countries. For CSOs and communities, however, accessing Global Fund and PEPFAR resources can be challenging given these mechanisms’ technical, financial, and programmatic requirements. Insufficient capacity of potential recipients to manage the funds presents a challenge for donors as …

The Feminization Of Hiv: Patriarchy As A Threat To Public Health In Ecuador – A Trans-Feminist Perspective, Fabián Espinosa Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

This article attempts to analyze male sexual conduct in Ecuador and its determining role in the feminization of HIV. Male promiscuity, not only tolerated but celebrated by sexist discourse, severely impairs public health initiatives and remains one of the critical issues for both individuals and collectives struggling for structural changes in sexual politics. The exercise of citizenships, sustained by a new constitutional framework, embraces the principle of “subversion from within”, the only significant way of challenging heterosexist imaginaries and practices. This type of activism focuses on the formal and normative political dimension of sex and gender, but also and most …

Comparative Experiential Education In Global Health For Undergraduates: A Platform For Careers And Lifelong Learning In Public Health, Lois Mccloskey Drph, Mph, Onsultant, Founding Program Director, Health And Community, Christopher J. Colvin Phd, Mph, Program Director, Faculty And Country Coordinator, South Africa, Health And Community

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

In 2005, the International Honors Program, a longstanding organization that runs comparative study abroad programs, launched its “Health and Community” (HC) Program. The program is offered to upper-level undergraduates from across the US and from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds. It travels to four countries in one semester and uses lectures, site visits, case study research and homestay experiences to engage students in critical and comparative thinking about health and illness at both the global and community levels. The interdisciplinary curriculum combines the perspectives of political economy, medical anthropology, and public health and each country program focuses learning around …

Environmental Sustainability: Challenges And Opportunities Of Greening Your Study Abroad Program, Sylvia M. Seger Mim, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

World Learning’s mission to “… create a more peaceful and just world” by necessity encompasses environmental dynamics, considering that the root causes of most social justice issues and violent conflicts can be traced to environmental degradation and disproportional access to shrinking natural resources. Thus our mission mandates that we employ an ethic of environmental stewardship in all our pursuits and put in place mechanisms to mitigate our environmental impacts.

“We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations, the important thing is not to achieve but …

Crossing Cultures: From Conversation To Participation, Mary Catherine Bateson Phd

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Mary Catherine Bateson is a writer and cultural anthropologist who has taught at Harvard, Northeastern University, Amherst College, Spelman College and abroad in the Philippines as well as in Iran. In 2004 she retired from her position as Clarence J. Robinson Professor in Anthropology and English at George Mason University, and is now Professor Emerita. Since the Fall of 2006 she has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Aging & Work/Workplace Flexibility at Boston College and is a special consultant to the Lifelong Access Libraries Initiative of the Libraries for the Future, with an emphasis on conceptualization, testing …

Reconciling Post-Genocide Rwanda, Stefanie Pollender Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

My presentation is a case study of Rwanda and will circle around different approaches to reconciliation and the role of memory. Following a brief overview of the situation at the end of the genocide in 1994, I will introduce the different approaches the Rwandan government has undertaken to build unity and reconciliation amongst its citizens in order to lay the foundation for a strong nation. In my presentation I will also touch upon the role of memorials, the necessity to remember and the challenges of divisionism and denial of the genocide.

Social Identity Development: Africans To United States, Claire Halverson Phd, Professor

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

There are a plethora of racial identity development models based on experiences of racial minorities in the United States which Halverson and Ken Williams use in their Social Identity class. None of these models describe the experience of immigrants and long-term residents of color from Asia, So America, and Africa. Halverson and Williams interviewed 25 Black and Arab Africans who have lived in the United States in order to understand if there is a pattern of identity development for this population that could be replicated in a model. Based on these interviews, they developed a model which they named the …

The Central America Peace Accords, Demobilization And Reconciliation: Experiences In Nicaragua And El Salvador, Aynn Setright Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

In 2010 Nicaragua is commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Nicaraguan Peace Accords the end to a previous twenty years of violence in the struggle to overthrow the Somoza family dictatorship and then the contra war against the Sandinista Revolutionary government (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional –FSLN) in the 1980s. In El Salvador the Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberación Nacional (FMLN) is celebrating their 2009 electoral victory over the ARENA party. What shapes these national liberation parties today? How have these processes of reconciliation been realized? What are the lessons to be learned and applied in other war torn societies? …

Learning From Homestay Hosts, Alison Swartz Mph Candidate, Program Assistant, Jesse Delaughter Ma, Assistant Program Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Homestay hosts play a pivotal role in many study abroad programs, including all of ours at IHP. We know that homestays are an important part of the learning experience for our students. We hear it anecdotally from alumni and read generally positive reviews of homestays in student evaluations. We talk about homestays as a program element that contributes to learning and fosters intercultural exchange, but we don’t really know what students are learning from their hosts or what kind of exchange is occurring. We have not typically incorporated hosts into the core of the academic program in the way that …

Paradigm Educational Materialist For The Pedagogy Of The 21st Century, Roberto Enrique Villaseca Muñoz Phd Candidate, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

Since the second half of the twentieth century, postmodern theories of discourse and language ideology has seized the collective imagination of society and education, mainly through the curriculum, pedagogical models, constructivism and the massmedia. In Higher Education, these are accentuated after the eighties, which contributed to sacrifice the materialistic ideas and the postmodern position within a framework of irrefutable ideological bias. The market economy of neoliberal ideology spreads a unique style of absolute truth, education paradigms of language and discourse that dislocates and deconstructs reality, articulated with the massmedia, encourages alienation. Neoliberalism destroys the environment and deepends social inequalities. These …

New Lines Of Inquiry: Arts-Based Research For Bridging Cultures, Sarah Brock Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

This paper explores the implications for arts-based research (ABR) methods in fostering cross-cultural dialogue in international study. It reviews the academic arguments for and against the use of arts-based methodologies in qualitative research where more traditional, methodologies in the social sciences are combined with creative inquiry – narrative, poetic, dance, and visual forms of inquiry, for example – as well as the technical challenges and benefits associated with drawing on the humanities and arts as primary modes of inquiry; it explores the relevance and potential for ABR within the broader context of the study and use of the arts and …

The Anatomy Of Conflict, Lahcen Haddad Phd, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

The need for peace in today’s world has become an existential issue for humanity. Without a sense of shared earth and its resources and a shared humanity governed by universal and local values, the human race seems to be more threatened with a crippling propensity for self-destruction than ever before. Some theories, systems of thought even religious currents like Marxism, fascism, jihadi Islam, crusading Christianity, expansionist Zionism think that conflict is fundamental to History inasmuch as it allows for justification of the self through the use of power. For Marxism, struggle as conflict between classes is the engine that drives …

Where Do We Go From Here: The Intersection Of Culture, Communication, And Technology, Mokhtar Bouba Ma, Med, Instructional Technologist, Sora Friedman Phd, Associate Professor And Degree Chair

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

SIT has long been involved with the nexus between culture and communications. Historically, this has caused us to ask how we can “properly” and “effectively” navigate in cultures that are foreign to us. More recently, however, communication platforms are changing and therefore, we see a rising need for rethinking some of the cross cultural models in use. This session will thus explore the changing nexus between cultures, communication, and technology.

Our context will consider questions such as how students’ experiences are different because of increased use of technology, how social media affects cross cultural experiences, and the degree to which …

Giving Voice To Our Students And Partners: From Principles To Actions, Ana Rita Diaz-Munoz Ma, Academic Director

Fostering Multicultural Competence and Global Justice: an SIT Symposium

The principle of reciprocity guides our daily work: the idea that we are giving something back to the community in order to make a difference. We try not only to implement it, but pass it on to our students.

The core of our work as educators is possible thanks to the relationship with the host communities and organizations with which we work. This is the reason why it is crucial to find ways to give back to those organizations that work to improve the community.

Based on a dialog with students, colleagues and partners, we intend to answer a few …

Teaching English To Children With Adhd, Natalia Turketi

Sandanona

How to teach English to highly distractable and hyperactive children? How does the process of the Second (Foreign) Language acquisition for such students look like? I will highlight these issues in my presentation and demonstrate a few activities that can be helpful in teaching ADHD kids.

Acting Out In The Classroom, Kim Noel Daelhousen

Sandanona

The use of theater strategies and activities in the language classroom provides a space for students, like actors, to play and thus more deeply incorporate elements of the target language. Participants will be “playing” along with the presenter to explore various theater-based activities.

Beyond The Field- Linguistic Challenges For International Athletes, Christine Allers

Sandanona

The presenter will explore what it feels like for baseball players to arrive in the US (both on and off the field). A simulation will allow participants to experience the emotions and impact of having a talent dependent upon team communication, media interaction, and the world outside the ballpark.

A Linguistic Dialog Between Chinglish And Engnese, Yajuan Zhang

Sandanona

What is “Chinglish”? What is “Engnese”? The presenter will demonstrate the difference and the similarity between Chinese language and English language and analyze the errors of Chinese students' inter-language. The audience will contemplate the influence of L1 transfer upon ELL language acquisition and explore the possibilities for both teachers and learners to face the challenge.

The Writer’S Voice: Developing Self-Expression In Esl Writers, Genevieve Halkett

Sandanona

What is good writing? For many ESL students, this means grammatical accuracy; as a result, their own writing voices are often lost. The presenter will illustrate successful strategies and activities which can be used with a variety of levels and ESL writers to encourage fluency and self-expression.