Editorial

Abstract

The papers in this issue can be grouped into three distinct, yet interrelated, zones of intercultural communication. Two papers use a broadly interpretive approach which brings qualitative evidence to bear upon the development of intercultural competence in very different pedagogic contexts. Dasli describes a British Studies programme in an English university, while Méndez García investigates a bilingual CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) programme in Andalusia. Then, de la Piedra & Araujo offer a more ethnographic study which explores the intercultural literacy practices of young people being brought up and educated across the border between Mexico and the USA. Finally, Dyers & Wankah and Tannenbaum & Essa use discourse analysis and social psychology, respectively, to examine alternative ends of the spectrum of 'othering' in two challenging national contexts Á South Africa and Israel.It is now 40 years since Larry Samovar and Richard Porter published their (1972) reader for the first university courses in intercultural communication delivered in Michigan and Pittsburgh (Martin, Nakayama, & Carbaugh, 2012); and over 20 years since Michael Byram published Cultural Studies in Foreign Language Education (1989), which has proved so influential upon the work of our Association (ialic.net). In our view, Byram's principle that language learning is also culture learning has now become relatively uncontested throughout language pedagogy in Europe and North America, and would also appear to be becoming increasingly accepted globally. This much all appears heart-warming stuff Á but is about as far as the good news goes. For you don't have to dig very deeply into our field of study to reveal an area of research and pedagogy which remains intriguingly, and often passionately, contested Á not only with respect to pedagogical practice, but also to the research approach, paradigm or epistemology of intercultural communication.First up, pedagogic approaches remain differentiated according to how they are situated within different disciplinary frameworks and different populations of students with different educational purposes. As is exemplified in this issue, despite the long-standing problematization of an English-speaking 'Centre' (Kachru, 1986) Á Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA continue to receive worldwide influxes of undergraduate and postgraduate students for university study. In particular, many international students receive courses in their first years of undergraduate study to inculcate them into the academic and social culture of their host country. By contrast, across Europe, students both in the later year of public schooling and at university level continue to study the most popular languages of the Union Á English, French, Italian, Spanish, German Á in a foreign language situation. Elsewhere, such as in certain states on the southerly US border, education in schools can be bilingual Á drawing in particular on both English and Spanish.Secondly, there remains little consensus about the...