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2022 International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence

Virtual. All sessions will be accessed through the conference app, which will be accessible to registered attendees in January.

PLENARY - Exploring the Impact of Ethnographic Inquiry: Students’ Perceptions of the Foreign Other during Study Abroad

Friday, January 28, 2022 at 11:00 AM–12:00 PM MST
Bobcat
Presentation Summary

This talk presents findings from a longitudinal qualitative study that investigated the impact of ethnographic inquiry on British modern languages students’ perceptions of the European and Latin American foreign other during the year abroad. It begins from the argument that although ethnography is integrated into many modern languages undergraduate degree programmes in the UK and beyond, very little prior empirical research has assessed its actual intercultural learning outcomes for modern languages sojourners. Drawing on pre-departure and post-return semi-structured active interviews and reflective diaries that students wrote during their sojourns, the thematic and critical discourse analysis of the data directs attention to the cultural stereotypes and negative generalisations most participants produced when talking and writing about the foreign other. It is suggested that although some of these generalisations were more blatantly negative than others, common to all was the use of discursive devices (e.g., disclaimers, presentation and quoting of self and others) that attenuate the potentially face-damaging impact of ethnocentric expressions. Because these expressions remained almost intact throughout the year abroad, this talk problematises the view that ethnography provides significant intercultural benefits to modern languages sojourners against the backdrop of a wounded post-Brexit economy that makes the opportunities, as well as the resources, for going abroad increasingly scarce.

Primary Presenter

Maria Dasli, University of Edinburgh
State (if in the U.S.)
Country

Scotland

Professional Biography

Dr. Maria Dasli is Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor and Head of the Institute for Language Education at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Her main research activities and published work spread over two related fields of international interest: a) intercultural language education, with a particular focus on the ethics of responsibility and hospitality, and b) critical discourse analysis, with a particular focus on contemporary race discourse. Dr. Dasli is co-editor (with Adriana Diaz) of The Critical Turn in Language and Intercultural Communication Pedagogy: Theory, Research and Practice (Routledge, 2017) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She was Co-Director of the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES) from 2011 to 2015, and Reviews and Criticism Editor of the SCI-listed journal Language and Intercultural Communication from 2016 to 2019.

Secondary Presenters

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