Developing Cultural Intelligence Through Experiencing Diverse Cultures

A great way to develop your cultural intelligence is to expose yourself to people, events, and locations of a different culture than the one you are most familiar with. According to P. Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski, people with high cultural intelligence generally have a lot of experience in the role of cultural strangers, “They’re used to being observers and making a conscious effort to fit in.” For this exercise, you will go out of your cultural comfort zone, attend an unfamiliar cultural event or location, and “[use] your senses to register all the ways that the personalities interacting in front of you are different from those in your home culture yet similar to one another.

For this assignment, you will gain a hands-on appreciation of how culture and landscape interact through examination of the Waterloo Region neighbourhoods. On your walking tour you will explore the area in order to identify how culture interacts with the landscape and how social identities are reflected in the landscape.

On Saturday, September 21, 2019 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. 43 Doors Open sites are available to visit, including WATER theme sites, talk, walks, hands-on activities, and MORE!

Online site listings, maps, photos, info < https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/exploring-theregion/doors-open-waterloo-region.aspx > While there, suspend your judgments about what is taking place, and use all of your senses to observe the behaviors and interactions of the people around you. Try to participate in the proceedings as much as possible, without imposing your own conventional practices, beliefs, or norms on the people there. If there are activities for you to participate in, don’t be afraid to ask for guidance or to admit ignorance. Do not film or interview anyone, just pay attention.

Whatever site you choose, STAY SAFE. Do not go to any space in which you are likely to put yourself at risk of injury. Make sure that you feel safe wherever you go, and don’t hesitate to leave if you are ever concerned for your wellbeing.

Provide an example of world cultures found in your "own backyard." Meaning, we do not have to travel outside of our own communities to perceive diverse world cultures all around us.

Format A)

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation (5-7 slides). Include the following sections:

(1) Title Page, (2) Introduction & Objectives, (3) Context (where, address and time), Observation (describe what you saw), (4 -5) Discussion (explain how your own culture affected how you felt about what you saw, what was interesting), (6) Conclusion and (7) Resources (APA style) Minimum 2 resources.

Format B)

Write your response in 500 words (550 max), paragraph format and create a post.

Include the following sections:

(i) Introduction & Objectives, (ii) Context, (iii) Observation, (iv) Discussion, (v) Conclusion, (vi) Resources (APA style) Minimum 2 Resources You should summarize your observations in several paragraphs. Do not list your observations in point form.

Describe how the event or location differed from a comparable event or location within your home culture. What different cultural values or beliefs were at work in this context? In what ways were the cultural practices you observed and your home cultural practices similar?

At the end of your paper, sum up what you learned from your experience.

You are "borrowing" (citing) information from a reading, so you must cite it. You can use cite from more than just the reading, but you must cite all sources.

Please refer to APA@conestoga to cite your sources. APA style includes both in-text citations and a reference section at the end of your post.