This book examines the identity formation and negotiation of Chinese doctoral students in the UK, and the opportunity for self-transformation this experience offers. As the largest group of international students in the English-speaking world, Mainland Chinese students encounter a range of difficulties and prospects that may be relevant to the wider international student community. Using extensive qualitative and empirical data, the author explores the narratives of eleven Chinese doctoral students at two British universities through a sociological perspective. Balancing analysis with solid theoretical framework and the voices of the students themselves, the author moves away from essentialism and ‘othering’, instead shining a light on the effects of globalisation, internationalisation and recent policy strategies. This volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of comparative and international education, identity formation, intercultural communication, the sociology of education and study abroad.

This edited volume explores the educational significance of intercultural experience. It offers a broader conception of interculturality than commonly found in the area of foreign language teaching. Contributors represent a diverse range of academic and professional interests. The aim of the book is to encourage dialogue and interchange across this range, and beyond, to stimulate thinking about the educational value of intercultural experience.

The search for identity is a continuous challenge in the global world: from personal identity to social, national, European or professional identities, each person experiences nowadays a multi-dimensional self-representation. Placing the topic against an intercultural background, with a focus on communication, this book addresses the complicated relationship between self, identity, and society, from an academic perspective. The authors of the chapters in this book offer a complex landscape of professional and scholar approaches and research, in various parts of the world, including Canada, China, Estonia, France, Greece, Israel, Romania, and the United States of America.

This book systematically investigates intercultural experiences of Polish managers and specialists delegated by their multinational company (MNC) on an international assignment to China. The book employs narrative inquiry to explore language, intercultural communication, collaboration, learning, and expatriate adjustment in the MNC. This approach offers new insights into intercultural experiences, communication, and cultural challenges faced by an under-researched group of professionals exposed to intensive collaborations with the local managers and employees. The findings also illustrate how the expatriates learned to better navigate the multicultural and multilingual business context and what factors facilitated and inhibited their learning and adjustment. Encouraging the qualitative, context-sensitive examination of expatriate-local personnel interactions, the book will be an invaluable source for scholars and practitioners interested in, among others, novel approaches to investigating language and intercultural communication in international business, cross-cultural management, qualitative cross-cultural research, as well as for lecturers and students interested in Central Europe and China.

This book comprises an examination of novice teachers’ experiences in schools and cultures of schooling across the contexts of Hong Kong, Japan, and Canada. Drawing on narrative inquiry and arts-based approaches, this study employs experience as a starting point for making sense of both professional and personal encounters in local and foreign settings. This work thus sheds light on how people make sense of shifting landscapes in an era of increasing intercultural communication and interaction while addressing important curricular implications of intercultural professional development for equity and social justice.

Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication is a lively and accessible introduction for undergraduates who are new to the area of intercultural communication. Incorporating real-life examples from around the world and drawing on current research, this text argues against cultural stereotyping and instead provides students with a skill-building framework to enhance understanding of the complexities of language and intercultural communication in diverse international settings. Readers will learn to understand and become aware of power relations, positioning and the impact of social and political forces on language choice and the intercultural communication process. This is the essential text for undergraduate students studying courses in intercultural communication for the first time. Features include: clear learning objectives to structure your study end of chapter discussion questions to test your knowledge highlighted glossary terms to provide a strong understanding of the relevant vocabulary an array of photos including signs which make use of non-verbal codes and many examples that illustrate such issues as intercultural misunderstandings and the effects of culture shock substantial online resources for students including learning objectives, suggested readings, links to media resources and real-world intercultural scenarios and activities. Additional in-depth instructor resources feature test materials, powerpoints, key terms, extended chapter outlines and sample assignments and syllabi.

Offers qualitative studies of collaboration processes conducted in globalising companies based in Denmark and with subsidiaries in Asia. It addresses the specific contexts of collaboration and studies how people with different cultural backgrounds work together, both face-to-face and in the virtual workplace.

This book describes the linkage between the worlds of culture and inclusion based on the concept of intercultural proficiency (IP). It explains the building blocks of intercultural proficiency by providing a conceptual framework that combines and structures the existing knowledge base and extends it by incorporating the author’s own empirical research work. The framework presents not only a comprehensive and universal model based on existing concepts but also implications for learning and teaching strategies. This book and the IP concept provide guidance for students, early working professionals as well as seasoned working professionals on how to thrive and succeed when interacting with different cultures. It allows us to think outside our narrow cultural boundaries and decode complex cross-cultural interactions. Thus, the IP approach can be applied in academic and corporate settings, as it facilitates potential for solution of the issues associated with multicultural workforces and global operations of organizations.

This handbook takes a multi-disciplinary approach to offer a current state-of-art survey of intercultural communication (IC) studies. The chapters aim for conceptual comprehension, theoretical clarity and empirical understanding with good practical implications. Attention is mostly on face to face communication and networked communication facilitated by digital technologies, much less on technically reproduced mass communication. Contributions cover both cross cultural communication (implicit or explicit comparative works on communication practices across cultures) and intercultural communication (works on communication involving parties of diverse cultural backgrounds). Topics include generally histories of IC research, theoretical perspectives, non-western theories, and cultural communication; specifically communication styles, emotions, interpersonal relationships, ethnocentrism, stereotypes, cultural learning, cross cultural adaptation, and cross border messages;and particular context of conflicts, social change, aging, business, health, and new media. Although the book is prepared for graduate students and academicians, intercultural communication practitioners will also find something useful here.

This innovative book applies contemporary and emergent theories of identity formation to timely questions of identity re/formation and development in immigrant families across diverse ethnicities and age groups. Researchers from across the globe examine the ways in which immigrants from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America dynamically adjust, adapt, and resist aspects of their identities in their host countries as a form of resilience. The book provides a multidisciplinary approach to studying the multidimensional complexities of identity development and immigration and offers critical insights on the experiences of immigrant families. Key areas of coverage include: Factors that affect identity formation, readjustment, and maintenance, including individual differences and social environments. Influences of intersecting immigrant ecologies such as family, community, and complex multidimensions of culture on identity development. Current identity theories and their effectiveness at addressing issues of ethnicity, culture, and immigration. Research challenges to studying various forms of identity. Re/Formation and Identity: The Intersectionality of Development, Culture, and Immigration is an essential resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, professionals, and policymakers in the fields of developmental, social, and cross-cultural psychology, parenting and family studies, social work, and all interrelated disciplines.