Choosing Appropriate Activities for
Participants’ Developmental Stages
While choosing activities from this manual, keep in mind that individuals learn most effectively if both content and process fit their intellectual and emotional stages of development. This is a particular challenge for classroom settings in which there are individuals in various developmental stages. We do, however, make every effort in our curriculum designs to take groups from less to more challenging content or information and from less to more difficult activities.
One way to express the challenge is to ask participants to learn something (content) or do something (process) that is beyond their current comfort level or ability. It is important to offer enough challenge that the participant is learning but not so much that he or she feels threatened and learning stops. Therefore, we provide more basic information (e.g., the definition of culture) before we provide more complex information (e.g., the definition of values and the distinction between terminal and instrumental values). At the same time we begin with less challenging processes such as “lecturettes” and small-group discussions before moving to more challenging processes such as role playing or simulations.
Janet Bennett (1993) has made the point that it is important to balance the content with the process or activity. She argues that such balance is key to learning. Participants learn most when high-challenge content is balanced with low-challenge process and/or low-challenge content is balanced with high-challenge process:
• High-challenge content and low-challenge process (e.g., understanding values via lecture) = new information
• High-challenge content and high-challenge process (e.g., understanding style shifting via role playing) = threat and escape
• Low-challenge content and low-challenge process (e.g., greeting protocol via lectures) = boredom and escape
• Low-challenge content and high-challenge process (e.g., greeting protocol via physical practice) = new skills
Level of ethnocentrism or ethnorelativism is another developmental perspective that needs to be considered. Milton Bennett (1993) has developed one model for how individuals develop intercultural sensitivity, beginning with the ethnocentric stage of Denial and ending with the ethnorelative stage of Integration. Bennett posits that ethnocentrism, which literally means “centrality of culture,” is often the root of cultural misunderstanding and conflict. Individuals learn both the visible/external and invisible/internal rules of their own culture. Thereafter, they tend to assume that the way they see the world is normal and natural and often assume that everyone else views the world the way they do. Ethnorelativism, or relativity of culture, on the other hand, is the ability to see a range of behaviors as appropriate within various cultures. The first step toward cross-cultural competence is cultural self-awareness. Exposure to cultural differences can help provide comparisons to enhance one’s self-awareness as well as facilitate the development of multiple frames of reference. Cultural errors can be reduced as an individual’s frame of reference expands to include different dimensions of culture.
Bennett’s model not only helps identify the stages through which individuals proceed as they approach cultural competency, it also offers suggestions for the most effective types of activities to help people move to the next stage of development.
We have used the work of Milton and Janet Bennett to identify what we believe to be the “risk level” of any given activity for individual participants. Risk is here defined as putting the participants in a situation where they (a) cannot learn new material because it is beyond their developmental stage or intellectual ability, (b) cannot participate in an activity because it is beyond their psychological development or emotional comfort level, or (c) are being asked to disclose something, either behaviorally or verbally, that is embarrassing or seen as too private. Any of these situations may lead to a sense of failure and can result in a participant’s withdrawing—either physically or emotionally.
There are also risks for the trainer. A beginning trainer needs to consider her or his depth of information and skill level in facilitating and managing group process. We do not recommend that an inexperienced trainer undertake high-risk activities when working alone. Risk levels for each activity (low, medium, high) are noted in the “Classification of Activities” on pages viii–ix.
Low-risk activities are most appropriate for individuals who may be in the early stages of developing intercultural sensitivity and for whom the very discussion of the content of cultural values may be a relatively risky venture. The activities in 52 Activities for Exploring Values Differences that allow people to explore culture and values in an easy, nonthreatening manner are presented toward the front of the manual. Higher-risk activities, on the other hand, will be most helpful for people who have had considerable experience with cultural issues and are ready to proceed to more challenging content information or more challenging processes that engage them in personal assessments, self-disclosure, or practice for skill building.