Title We are in the same boat, yet I am from another culture: the lived experiences of learning in groups during mobility /
Translation of Title Mes vienoje valtyje, bet aš vis tiek iš kitos kultūros: išgyvenimai mokantis daugiakultūrėse grupėse mobilumo metu.
Authors Kairė, Sandra
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Pages 69
Keywords [eng] Intercultural learning ; cultural encounter ; learning mobility ; hermeneutic phenomenology ; lived experience.
Abstract [eng] What does it mean to learn in a culturally diverse group? It is the main question that is posed in this doctoral dissertation. At first glance this question seems fairly simple. However, it raises multiple other questions which are studied in this doctoral dissertation. What does it mean to encounter cultural Other? What does it mean to learn not only with one but many cultural Others at the same time? What does it mean to learn in a group of people when there is no domination of any particular cultural background? The empirical study employs the hermeneutic phenomenology approach proposed by the Canadian scholar Max van Manen. The research orients to the possible meanings of learning in culturally diverse groups and seeks to reveal the essence of this phenomenon. It is discovered through the lived world of concrete mobile people who were participating in learning mobility and doing international volunteering (i.e., European voluntary service) in a foreign country. The empirical study has found that learning in a culturally diverse group during the mobility period equals to rowing in the same boat, where people from culturally different backgrounds are alike in many ways and at the same time see their obvious cultural differences. The main feature of the phenomenon of learning in a culturally diverse group is the opposites which young people live through when they are learning together with cultural Others. These opposites fluctuate between processes of inclusion and exclusion and manifest in the perspectives of the lived space, lived time, lived body and lived relation. The research reveals that an actual encounter experienced in a culturally diverse group can become a significant experiential learning activity that stimulates young people to experience otherness and encourages their inner transformations. The findings also draw attention to the importance of the educator’s actions when learners experience actual multicultural encounters. The educator’s attention to what is happening during these encounters and to his or her own actions can have a crucial impact on transforming learning with into learning from the cultural Other.
Dissertation Institution Vilniaus universitetas.
Type Summaries of doctoral thesis
Language English
Publication date 2018