CREATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT FOR LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE IN AN INTERCULTURAL TEAM

Raimonda Brunevičiūtė

Kaunas University of Medicine

Nijolė Petronėlė Večkienė

Vytautas Magnus University

Julija Braždžionytė

Kaunas University of Medicine

Žilvinas Padaiga

Kaunas University of Medicine

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Crete, 22-25 September 2004

Abstract

The multidisciplinary (multicultural).character of knowledge society poses new requirements to a person (Bourdieu, 1990, 1994, 2003; Ritzer, 1996; Jucevičienė, 1999; Stanišauskienė, Večkienė, 2000). These requirements condition a change in the interaction between a person and his/her environment. Within this cultural-social medium arises the necessary condition of communication and mutual understanding. Thus, the following problem may be formulated: is it possible and how is it possible to create a learning environment in which representatives of different professional cultures would be able to learn to communicate? In this article, this problem is analyzed with the help of the idea of intercultural communication within a team consisting of the representatives of biomedical and social activity. The group of the co-authors of this article represents this idea: this group consists of specialists of social work, biomedicine, and philology, cooperating in educational activity.

The aim of this article is to present a variety of multidisciplinary approaches to the health phenomenon, and the possibility to create the environment for learning to intercommunicate in a group or a team of different professional cultures. The article is based on the methodological principles of learning and empowerment, highlighting the position of an active and responsible specialist and the need for cooperation, conditioning the success of teamwork.

The article consists of an introduction, four parts, and conclusions. The first part presents the analysis of intercultural cooperation between different professionals in the aspect of communication impediments and resulting problems arising from differences in approaches to the health phenomenon. The second part analyzes the educational premises for communication and learning to communicate through the disclosure of the philological, communicational, and educational approaches to communication, and the substantiation of the educational possibilities for learning to communicate. The third part of the article presents a discussion on the transfer strategy as the educational premise for the creation of the environment for learning intercultural cooperation. The fourth part presents an attempt to apply transfer strategy for learning professional languages in biomedical studies, and to create the environment for learning intercultural communication.

Introduction

One of the essential challenges a knowledge society is facing today is the multidisciplinary character of such society. This conditions the approach stating that the planning of each social activity (education, provision of social services, etc.), not to speak of social studies, must be based on context analysis including the evaluation of the political, economical, social and cultural dimensions, and technological conditions. Today’s labor market shows an increasing demand for specialists who can combine various approaches, different competences, and even different professional culture, rather than for connoisseurs of one purview. The society is becoming increasingly multicultural, and thus the phenomena of global social risk are becoming increasingly prominent (Lorenz,1998).

Such society poses new requirements to a person (Bourdieu, 1990, 1994; Ritzer, 1996; Jucevičienė, 1999; Stanišauskienė, Večkienė, 2000; Brunevičiūtė, Večkienė, 2003). These requirements condition a change in the interaction between a person and his/her environment. Within this cultural-social medium arises the necessary condition of intercommunication and mutual understanding (Grebliauskienė, Večkienė, 2004).

In this study we are analyzing the peculiarities of the intercommunication between the representatives of two different (by the concept of the object of studies, and activity) fields or professional cultures – biomedicine and social sciences, as well as the issues of the development of the communication competence. From the historical and social transformation perspectives, in the field of biomedicine the traditional concept of a profession, emphasizing the distinction of the profession, predominates, while in social sciences intensive transformations take place, requiring a substantial revision of the concepts of social professions.

The “unity environment” (Tomlinson, 2000) that forms under the influence of globalization requires the social dimension of all professions, but on the other hand it brings relevance to the significance of the specific professional experience in the construction of the “unity environment”, i.e. it requires essential changes in the preparations of the specialists in these professions. The dissertation study performed in Lithuania (Žydžiūnaitė, 2003), confirms the relevance of these issues.

The dynamism, competitiveness, balanced growth, and social cohesion of the knowledge-based EU economic system, emphasized in the Lisbon strategy, highlight the field of social studies. The objective reality of the knowledge society is the convergence of sciences that can result in difficulties of the intercommunication between the representatives of different fields of science. Failure to recognize this reality makes the intercommunication between the representatives of different fields of social activity and different professions who work in one team hardly possible. When searching for the possibilities for intercommunication, attention should be paid, among others, to the creation of subjective conditions for enabling to deal with this problem.

Thus, the following problem may be formulated: is it possible and how is it possible to create a learning environment in which representatives of different professional cultures would be able to learn to intercommunicate?

In this article, this problem is analyzed with the help of the idea of intercultural communication within a team consisting of the representatives of biomedical and social activity. The group of the co-authors of this article represents this idea: this group consists of specialists of social work, biomedicine, and philology, cooperating in educational activity.

The aim of this article is to present a variety of multidisciplinary approaches to the health phenomenon, and the possibility to create the environment for learning to intercommunicate in a group or a team of different professional cultures.

The article is based on the methodological principles of learning and empowerment, highlighting the position of an active and responsible specialist and the need for cooperation, conditioning the success of teamwork.

The article consists of an introduction, four parts, and conclusions. The first part presents the analysis of intercultural cooperation between different professionals in the aspect of intercommunication impediments and resulting problems arising from differences in approaches to the health phenomenon. The second part analyzes the educational premises for intercommunication and learning to intercommunicate through the disclosure of the philological, communicational, and educational approaches to communication, and the substantiation of the educational possibilities for learning to intercommunicate. The third part of the article presents a discussion on the transfer strategy as the educational premise for the creation of the environment for learning intercultural cooperation. The fourth part presents an attempt to apply transfer strategy for learning professional languages in biomedical studies, and to create the environment for learning intercultural communication.

1. Interdisciplinary/intercultural cooperation within the context of the changes in the concept of health

This section presents the discussion on changes in the concept of health, the highlighting of the social aspects of the concept of health, and an attempt to reveal the peculiarities of cooperation in an interdisciplinary team on the basis of the analysis of the communication between health specialists and social workers. The analysis of literature (Johnson, 1995, Sajienė, 2000; Žydžiūnaitė, 2003) and practical activity revealed the following:

·  a variety of approaches towards the phenomenon of health resulting in communication interferences,

·  possibilities and problems of interdisciplinary cooperation,

·  the peculiarities of the development of the concept of health in the social context of Lithuania.

Health as an interdisciplinary field is a relatively new phenomenon. The process of natural maturation has been reserved for the biomedical specialists for a long time, and the science of sociology even today is reluctant to recognize that this is a bio-psychological construct.

Literature on social work (Comton, Galaway, 1999; Dominelli, 2004; Lorenz., 1998) presents the analysis of the processes that take place in the course of human life with respect to the development of the interaction between a person and his/her environment. This conditions a holistic but frequently subjective approach of the specialist of this field to health.

Thus gradually emerges the first field of the changes in the concept of health – representatives and specialists of different fields of science, working in the field of human and public health view health problems differently. The aims of their activity when striving to strengthen human or public health may also be different (Table 1).

These models reveal three different approaches, the domination of which creates barriers for cooperation in a team working in the field of human and public health. Due to the failure to intercommunicate in such team, if the biomedical or business model predominates, the blame for the health problems is attributed to the patient, and the domination of the social model results in giving excessive prominence to the environment, thus reducing the person’s responsibility for his/her health.

The new holistic concept of health formulated by the WHO includes the following aspects:

·  The decisive role of approaches to the functional interaction between a person and the society;

·  Legal fundamentals of the concept of health and the strategies for their implementation;

·  Possibilities for ensuring healthy environment, appropriate health care, and healthy way of life;

·  The interaction between health, life expectancy, quality of life, and equal possibilities.

Table 1

The main theoretical models of the health care system (Johnson, W.H.,1995)
Variables / Biomedical model / Business model / Social model
Who controls the health care process? / The physician is an expert and an authority; the patient is merely a passive receiver of services / The physician is the provider of resources; the patient is not informed about the possibilities for searching and receiving services / The physician supports the patient’s decision, and informs and educates the patient; the patient is an active client
Aim of intervention / To support life and to alleviate the symptoms / To use resources as effectively as possible and to reduce responsibilities / The quality of life and the client’s need to control the situation are of importance
Ideal state / Absence of disease / Control of resource usage by increasing accountability and productivity / Usage of new possibilities, and changes in the lifestyle
Ways of intervention / Medications, surgery, chemical preparations / Usage of new products and application of new technologies in order to satisfy urgent and obvious needs / Education, empowerment, advocacy
Approach to disease / Disease is an abnormal condition / Disease is the cause of failures, inability to fulfill the responsibilities, and loss of productivity / Disease is the reaction to situational and environmental factors; disease inspires the concept of a person in the environment

This concept of health creates premises for the cooperation between specialists of different fields of science and practice. However, the implementation of this concept requires strategic decisions on the national and international levels. The network of social partners participating in the solution of health issues is expanding as well. The cooperation between politicians, heads and employees of the health care and social organizations, the church and other non-governmental organizations, and users of services is becoming a necessary condition for the change in health care. For this reason one can speak about the second field of changes characterized by the interdisciplinary nature and complexity of health care.

In Lithuania that is currently undergoing radical changes, the changes in health care are characterized by specific features typical only of this socio-cultural and socio-political formation: changes in formal and informal institutions, and economical restructuring, accompanied by chaotic and deep traumas of individuals and social groups. These changes substantiates the necessity for the interdisciplinary and intercultural cooperation, which is impossible without the apprehension of the changes in health care and the significance of the learning to cooperate in a multicultural team.

According to Bourdieu (1990, 1994), there exists a dialectic interaction between the field (objective structures) and habitus (mental, cognitive structures with whose help an individual is acting in the social environment). On the one hand, the field determines the habitus, but on the other hand, it is the habitus that gives the field sense and makes it valuable. Habitus is an active participation of history in us. It generates our practices, our actions, our strategies, and our perception of the world. A great significance for the formation of habitus has where and how we grew up and lived, the course of our socialization, order that prevailed at home, and the expression of the moral norms and values.

It is interesting to note that habitus tries to remove all “extravagancies”, i.e. the behavior that is incompatible with the objective conditions (Bourdieu 1990). Thus, habitus at the same time is the system of both the creation of practices and their understanding and evaluation. In both cases there emerge the decisive significance of the social situation in which this habitus formed. Bourdieu states that the more the social structures correspond to those in which the habitus was formed, the less a person’s daily activity requires special consideration, i.e. it is simply automatic. The author names it the logics of practice. And vice versa – the more the conditions are altered and different from the initial ones, the more difficult it is for the individual to resolve and act. These processes affect the whole modern culture of mankind. In these settings, the relationship between education and the reflection of practice becomes of special relevance.

There is another aspect of Bourdieu’s theory that is closely related to the discussed topic; this aspect states that the field can be viewed as a structured space of positions, where the positions and their interrelationships are conditioned by the pervasive of the capital of a different sort (Bourdieu 1994). The individual’s positions in the field depend on the size of the possessed capital and on the ratio between different capitals in disposition (the economical, the cultural, the social, and the symbolic ones) (Ritzer 1996). Here one can also find well-marked changes and think that these changes had different influence on the lives of different generations.

The change of the symbolic capital is very difficult to evaluate. Symbolic values, with whose help people’s significance and prestige during the transformation period were substantiated, have changed to a great extent. Bourdieu in his theory paid significant attention to this sort of capital, and especially to official decorations as the strongest form of symbolic capital.