Exploring “Who am I?”

We begin this week with a brief introduction to cultural identities, how they are revealed in our cultural stories, and ask you to start thinking about what identifies you.

Welcome back for Week 2! Hopefully you began to think about the topic of cultural identity when you heard or read our “our cultural stories” in Week 1. To get started, the next step asks you to share an item or two from your own spontaneous list.

With pen, pencil, keyboard or keypad at hand, get ready to write down all the identity features you think describe who you are. Here you might want to make some comments on why you think focusing on “cultural identity” is important in our multicultural world.

Please remember that sharing your reflections is an important part of this course. Each step lists the number of “Comments” made by fellow learners both the top and bottom of the page. We recommend that you scroll up or down to CLICK on the red comments link and then write a few lines to let us know what you are thinking about or what you’d like to ask or consider further.

Introducing the identities of our course mentors

While we are discussing “who we are”, we would also like to introduce you to the Mentor team we’ve asked to work with us to respond to some of your comments. Because each are international collaborators, faculty members, or part of our doctoral or masters’ student cohort at the SII they represent a broad set of intercultural interests. Our Mentors are looking forward to learning with you (you might want to check their profiles and “follow” several of them!):

Dr. Richard Draeger Jr (PhD, Lecturer, School of Finance and Economics at Shanghai International Studies University. Interested in the intersection of intercultural communicative competence and foreign language pedagogy as well as research methods)

Vivian SHEN (PhD, especially interested is identity negotiation, its formation and expression in literature, migration and acculturation in literary works like Asian American literature, Post-colonial studies and Chinese diaspora studies)

Jia HE (PhD, lecturer in Tilburg University, the Netherlands, especially interested in cross cultural research methods for valid comparisons and large-scale educational assessment)

Helen YAN (MA in intercultural communication, PhD Candidate in positive organizational psychology, especially interested in positive psychology intervention and cultural sensitivity, intercultural training and program evaluation)

Greg DuBois (MA, SISU lecturer, especially interested in intercultural education, cross-cultural values, and emerging cultural groups and cultural hybridity)

Bixuan ZHONG (SII staff, especially interested in comparative literature, British and American literature and culture, film studies, children’s literature, and narratology).

Huang JIANG (PhD Candidate, especially interested in intercultural competence, communication accommodation in intercultural context, intercultural training and social identity)

Fuxia ZHAO (PhD candidate, especially interested in intercultural teaching and learning in foreign language education, intercultural competence, intercultural training, and identity)

Xiaoyuan LI (PhD candidate, especially interested in identity, values, intercultural adaptation, new media studies, and linguistic landscape)

Shiqin WU (PhD candidate, especially interested in intercultural competence, intercultural teaching in EFL, teaching Chinese to speakers of other language and translation studies)

Qing YE (Third-year MA candidate in intercultural communication, especially interested in intergroup contact between Chinese domestic students and international students in China, multiculturalism, and multicultural personality)

Debbie Shen (Third Year MA candidate in Intercultural Communication, especially interested in multicultural identities, world literature, feminism, Japanese culture, and visual culture)

Mingwei SHEN (Third-year MA candidate in intercultural communication, especially interested in intercultural adaptation of inward international students in China, intercultural psychology and culture changes)

Let us know any thoughts you have about the range of interests on this team or aspects of the Mentoring process as the course goes along. Thanks for your engagement with us!