Abstract
Intercultural learning is about how we come to understand other cultures and our own through interaction, how we learn and communicate in cultural contexts, and how we learn culturally. Intercultural learning is vital in current contexts of international, multicultural and social diversity in which all of us increasingly need to interact with members of different cultural communities. We can easily imagine this will be even more the case in the future in globalized educational contexts, with imperatives related to technologies, demographics, economies and businesses, peace, individual and collective self-awareness and ethics (see Martin & Nakayama, 2009). Intercultural learning may be seen as a positive development or as a daunting challenge, yet it might also be empowering for participants — learning whatever we are learning in better ways. To modify a comment made in English for us by a Dutch student, ‘Culture is a magnet: it can attract you or repel you. Intercultural learning is an electromagnet: It combines both positive and negative forces in movement to drive a powerful motor.
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© 2013 Lixian Jin and Martin Cortazzi
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Jin, L., Cortazzi, M. (2013). Introduction: Research and Levels of Intercultural Learning. In: Jin, L., Cortazzi, M. (eds) Researching Intercultural Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291646_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291646_1
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