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 Vol.10 

The Significance of the Essence and Types of Culture for Cross-Cultural International Education


Author
San-Lii Chang
Synopsis

Cross-cultural interaction has the inherent nature of uncertainty due to a lack of shared cultural artifacts, systems, and beliefs as referents that intra-cultural interaction relies on, and different semiotic systems and communicative norms that participants draw on for interaction. This uncertainty of cross-cultural interaction can lead to danger of misunderstanding, failure, and conflict. Knowledge about the essence and characteristics of culture provides us with a foundation for understanding and judgment and helps us deal with cross-culturally inter-personal, inter-organizational, and inter-governmental affairs or support us in organizing cross-cultural international education projects. This study aims to deduce the principles of cross-cultural international education from (1) the essence and the inherent dynamics of culture-united and diverse, inheritable and changeable, systematic and contradictory, self-closed and embracive; and (2) the cultural thinking patterns-analysis or synthesis, imagination or abstraction, intuition or logic, system or situation, and the cultural value patterns for interaction--emphasizing interdependence or dependence, pursuing collective achievement or individual achievement, valuing face-saving and indirectness or honesty and frankness, highlighting unrestrained intimacy or respect of privacy, favoring harmony or competiveness.