Übersicht des Interkulturellen

Intercultipedia: Wiki for Gathering Descriptors of Intercultural Competence (Draft)

     
By Lothar Thiel

       
If a person wants to work in a certain social or professional environment especially due to her/his intercultural competence (ICC), it is a matter of course that the future partners or employers want to know, in what it really consists. But how can a young professional or a student prove to have this competence? If a certificate of intercultural competence shall have any value for its owner, it has to be:
1. transparent = it must describe in what the certified intercultural competence concretely consists.
2. individualized = it has to show to what extent intercultural competence has been acquired by the individual, not by the learning group as a whole. (That is why the value of statements like “has successfully participated in…” is rather limited.)
3. credible = the certifying institution respectively approved teachers or trainers of intercultural competence have to have a certain reputation in this area (e.g. universities, cultural institutes, educational institutions).
   

     
These criteria, especially those of transparency and individualization, need to be based on a certain definition of intercultural competence as a vocational qualification. Because it seems quite clear, that the evaluation and certification of an individual’s concrete intercultural competence cannot be based only on a generic definition of ICC. Therefore a certain system of well defined descriptors of intercultural competence is required – which could be gathered by means of a special Wiki.

The following text is only a rough sketch, demonstrating the idea by only one example. As it contains charts, it cannot be shown within this blog. So, please use the pdf file:
     
     
Lothar Thiel, Intercultipedia: A tentative draft of a Wiki for gathering descriptors of Intercultural Competence
       
     
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Picture: Landing ideas