The development of national occupational standards for intercultural working in the UK

Abstract

Language Teachers) developed a set of National Occupational Standards for Intercultural Working in the UK. This paper reports on three questions arising from the development project: how these standards are distinctive from others, how they realise intercultural competence and how they meet workplace expectations. Drawing on the directly relevant published evidence-base, the paper argues that these standards are distinctive in their relationship with other suites, the range of their application, and the ways in which personal attributes are exemplified and embedded within performance outcomes. The standards also reflect a multidimensional approach to competencies which include personal qualities such as reflection, self-development, critical thinking and ethics; and the standards are described in a way which is credible and achievable in the workplace. For example, one pivotal unit of the standards focuses on self-exploration and performance improvement around the areas of inclusive working practices, effective communication and challenging stereotypes.

Moving beyond ‘intercultural competence’: interculturality in the learning of Mandarin in UK universities

“…Therefore the notion that they only need to learn to be 'interculturally competent' neglects the already existing intercultural aspects of their lives and experiences: a person can be intercultural without being measured for 'competence'. There is an attempt, mainly within Europe, to systematise the assessment of intercultural competence in order to incorporate it into the measurement of workplace and training performance MacDonald, O'Regan, & Witana, 2009). The direction of research and development which draws on intercultural competence is of potential concern, since it involves an attempt to incorporate this idea into the framework of workplace discipline and control and reduce intercultural competence to a series of correct responses and attitudes that are reproduced within a test setting.…”

Researching the Intercultural: Intersubjectivity and the Problem with Postpositivism

“…This technicalized commodification of concepts [page 5 ends here] facilitates the postpositivist trend to pin down, define and measure the precise gradation of 'intercultural competence' and 'intercultural learning' by means of decades of increasingly complex performance lists and models (Deardorf 2009;Humphrey 2007;Reid 2013), especially within the domains of intercultural education and training (e.g. Byram et al 2001;Feng et al 2009;MacDonald et al 2009). The technicalized commodification of concepts then contributes to the neoliberal agenda through what Cribb and Gewirtz (2013: 344-345) refer to as the 'hollow university' subordinating educational concepts to 'spin', 'branding', 'impression management', and 'reputation drivers' with a relative disregard for how they actually effect pedagogic processes.…”

Using a rubric to grasp intercultural competence development in vocational education

“…These initiatives mostly take place in higher, academic, education in which cognitive development is often the main focus. In vocational education, which is the context of this study, much more emphasis is placed on competent performance in authentic, real-life and professional situations (De Bruijn, De, Billett, and Onstenk 2017), including intercultural behaviour that is expected in VET internships or future workplaces (MacDonald, O'Regan, and Witana 2009) Considering these challenges, we argue that a rubric could be a suitable tool to help explicating ICD in various aspects of vocational curricula and the challenges going along with making ICD an explicit part of their educational programmes (Tractenberg and FitzGerald 2011). The following section will elaborate on the features of the rubric that was used in our studies.…”

“…Given its importance in today's society, workplaces and internship places stress the importance of intercultural working (MacDonald, O'Regan, and Witana 2009), in some countries intercultural competence is incorporated in national qualification profiles (MacDonald, O'Regan, and Witana 2009), and educational institutions have incorporated intercultural competence development as a focal point of their education. At the same time, institutions struggle with the actual implementation due to difficulties concerning 1) explicating educational goals with respect to the ambiguous and multifaceted concept of intercultural competence and 2) developing teaching, learning and assessment activities and pedagogies that foster its development (Popov, Brinkman, and van Oudenhoven 2017;Deardorff 2015).…”

“…To start with the first, there are multiple terms for 'intercultural competence' that are often used interchangeably, like 'global competence' or 'cross-cultural competence', accompanied by different definitions and the identification of different component skills, like behavioural flexibility, communicative awareness, and empathy among others (MacDonald, O'Regan, and Witana 2009). This diversity and ambiguity regarding the concept of intercultural competence leaves education with a challenging assignment.…”