Elisabeth Gareis

Intercultural Friendship: Linking Communication Variables and Friendship Success

International students often complain about the lack of friendships with host nationals. This study explores the relationship between communication variables, number of friendships, and friendship satisfaction. International students at a large urban university in the United States completed a survey on willingness to communicate, communicative adaptability, English language proficiency, loneliness, and friendship with the Americans. Results show that international students rated their American friendships lower than their home- or other-culture friendships. Friendship numbers and satisfaction were significantly related to communicative adaptability, language proficiency, and loneliness. There was no significant correlation between friendship success and willingness to communicate or length of stay.

A Collaborative Online Project between New Zealand and New York

TWO ONLINE COLLABORATIVE assignments that connected students in courses at Unitec, New Zealand, and Baruch College, City University of New York, are the focus of this column. For the first assignment, small, blended groups used five different online techniques to explore topics being discussed in an intercultural communication course at each university. In the second assignment, student teams discussed a case study posted online and produced a collaborative report on their findings. Both assignments were designed to enhance student learning in business communication through computer-mediated communication (CMC) and diverse team building. In this article, we first discuss our rationale and goal for this online collaborative project. We then describe how we implemented and evaluated the two assignments, and summarize student recommendations for further replication.

Turning points and dialectical interpretations of immigrant experiences in the United States

This study examined immigrant socialization into the American culture using dialectical theory and turning point analysis. Using a revised version of the Retrospective Interview Technique (RIT) and questionnaire data, we asked 53 immigrants to the U.S. to recall turning point events since first arrival into this country. Following in‐depth questions about the turning point events, a questionnaire was administered that asked participants to rate six dialectical contradictions according to their importance for each turning point type. Turning point types identified tended to cluster around the issues of education, social relationships, cultural impressions, employment, travel, health and safety, and housing. Results from ratings of dialectical themes revealed that the openness versus closedness and predictability versus novelty themes were rated as significantly more important than other themes across all turning point types. Additional analysis revealed no significant differences among participants categorized into four different geographical areas, for ratings of affiliation to the culture or alienation from the culture.

Adult Friendship: Examples of Intercultural Patterns

Intercultural friendship provides one of the main avenues for meaningful interpersonal contact and is considered a catalyst for successful sojourn experiences and positive attitudes toward the host culture. Yet one of the most common complaints of foreign sojourners in the United States is the lack of friendship with Americans. This chapter examines the unique challenges of intercultural friendship formation by discussing definitional issues, highlighting prominent theoretical frameworks for research in intercultural relationship development, and exploring the factors instrumental in intercultural friendship formation, including culture, personality, self-esteem, friendship elements, expectations, adjustment stage, communicative competence, demographic variables, proximity, host-culture elements, and chemistry. The focus is on foreign students on U.S. campuses. Examples from their experiences are supplied, culture-specific patterns are described, and international perceptions of U.S. friendship patterns a...

Active Learning: A PowerPoint Tutorial

In each of the examples above, students actively participate in the learning process, take ownership for the information, and collaborate to understand and become knowledgeable about the content. The varied use of team activities as state changes during a class session helps students stay focused and involved. This result is well worth the instructional effort needed to prepare and manage an active class.

Raising the Bar on Global Awareness

International statistics can be an excellent tool to heighten global awareness and encourage political engagement domestically. In this activity, students locate comparative data for areas in which the United States is outperformed by another country, research the reasons behind differences, find organizations that work to improve the status quo in the United States, and present their findings with the use of carefully designed presentation graphics. The activity is effective for raising global awareness, promoting local engagement, and building students’ computer and communication skills. Courses: Intercultural Communication, International and Development Communication, Public Speaking.

Relativism Versus Universalism: Developing a Personal Philosophy

Objective: To explore and to arrive at a personal position vis-à-vis the concepts of universalism and relativism as they apply to gender issues Course: Intercultural communication

Contact Effects on Intercultural Friendship Between East Asian Students and American Domestic Students

Intercultural contact has been shown to reduce stereotyping and prejudice by lowering intergroup anxiety and the perception of intergroup threat. Recommendations on how contact can be promoted in the context of higher education often focus on extracurricular measures (including mixed-student housing, international events, and off-campus activities). This chapter examines how contact can be fostered through class assignments requiring the collaboration of international and domestic students. The study induced extended intercultural contact between pairs of East Asian international students and American students via a semester-long ethnographic project, during which students explored each other’s cultures. Results showed significant improvement in intergroup knowledge, attitudes, and social distance. The perceptions that students had of each other’s cultures also shifted, with stereotypes (especially of Asians as smart, quiet, and reserved) being replaced by more differentiated views. Previously reported negative portrayals of Asians as disliked, cold, and annoying could not be confirmed. Instead, mutual descriptions of friendliness were noticeable before and even more so after the project. Students expressed interest in maintaining contact following the semester at hand.

Promoting intercultural friendship among college students

ABSTRACT This study assessed the efficacy of a semester-long buddy project in facilitating intercultural friendship development. Results of pre-, post-, and follow-up surveys show significant improvements in knowledge and attitude; correlations between post-project knowledge, attitude, and interest in continued contact; and correlations between interest in continued contact and actual contact in the follow up. The majority of the participants evaluated the project as effective for friendship formation. Of the follow-up respondents, 23% developed friendships with their former buddies. The project serves as an example for assignments with the potential for friendship development, which is essential for optimal intergroup contact.

Communicating Love A Sociocultural Perspective

When communicating love, what is the right thing to do or say, when, where, by whom, and to whom? This chapter focuses on how love is expressed across culture and time. Following a review of definitions of love (including the questions of prototypicality, universality, and social construction), the chapter details historical and contemporary practices, in particular communication variables (such as mode, context, and gender), cultural dimensions, and recent changes in the use of verbal love expression in a number of cultures. The chapter concludes by grounding the prevailing understandings of love within the dialectics of expression versus restraint, autonomy versus unity, and role versus personal.