Promoting critical cultural awareness in the international university

Abstract

Critical cultural awareness is an essential component of critical thinking, and is increasingly necessary in order to build effective relationships in today’s globalised world. This chapter reports on a project carried out with a group of international and local journalism students, involving rewriting and refocusing local news stories from the students’ home countries for an international readership. This task brought students face to face with the need to communicate about familiar subjects to readers who would share little background knowledge. They had to construct a working theory of what the “international reader” would be likely to understand, and develop strategies to achieve comprehension. This also involved refocusing the story, highlighting different aspects of it for a new readership. The project generated considerable interest among the students, and sparked discussion of cultural topics and topoi that provided material for further research and reflection.