Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Advertisements
Advertisements

Intercultural Dialogues is a valuable addition to any undergraduate program

Cours emphasizes identity analyses, teaches students not to ‘other,’ promotes healthy campus climate
Intercultural+Dialogues+is+a+valuable+addition+to+any+undergraduate+program
Anne Blackbourn

Planning your schedule for next semester? Need to fulfill the ethnic studies requirement? Want to do so in a personally challenging and potentially life-changing way? Take Sociology 205: Intercultural Dialogues. I promise you won’t regret it.

Intercultural Dialogues is a discussion-based course that meets twice per week. It focuses on critically analyzing the socially constructed identities we all possess and encounter in our daily lives (ability, citizenship, class, ethnicity, gender, immigration status, nationality, race, religion and sexuality). The class also challenges students to think about and discuss the intersectionality of these identities and their real material and personal consequences. This is all done through interaction with written materials, media and — yup, you guessed it — dialogue. Students share not only their understandings of the information presented, but connect it to their own personal experiences.

I was drawn to the course because of its emphasis on crucial topics I didn’t learn much about in my formal K-12 education.

Advertisements

https://badgerherald.com/news/2017/03/02/experts-say-diversity-inclusion-mean-nothing-when-comes-to-real-social-change/

Having grown up in a small, predominantly white city in Wisconsin where inequities related to social identities were almost never talked about, my education was incomplete. Even though I had been aware of harmful racial, ethnic, class and gender stereotypes from a young age because I felt them and saw them around me, I struggled to describe them.

Intercultural Dialogues provided a place I could learn to do that and more. It also offered an opportunity to learn about my classmates’ experiences and come to better understand my own privileges and biases.

My overarching takeaway from this class is there are countless ways in which we are socialized to consciously and subconsciously “other” people. According to Oxford dictionary, as a verb “other” means “[to] view or treat (a person or group of people) as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself.” We “other” not only in relation to our own identities, but also in relation to what is considered “normal” in our society. Instead of seeing people as complex, unique individuals we often tend to do something we’ve been taught not to since childhood — judge books by their covers.

By attempting to infer far too much about an individual based on socially constructed categorizations of them, we force people into boxes they don’t want to be in, setting unfair expectations and contributing to the reproduction of social inequality. Raising awareness of this is the first step to changing it, and that’s where Intercultural Dialogues comes in.

https://badgerherald.com/news/2017/02/28/uw-community-celebrates-end-to-black-history-month-beginning-of-black-cultural-center/

In the course, students look to the past to understand where social identities come from, examine the present to see how they’re playing out in our lives and all around us and talk about ways we, as future leaders, can make the institutions we benefit from — the education system, politics, the criminal justice system and arts and the media, to name a few — more equitable. Structural inequality rooted in histories of oppression remain present in all institutions — we’re all complicit in it and impacted by it at the same time, all the time.

Intercultural Dialogues requires a short application but has no prerequisites. All who apply simply need an open mind, a willingness to be vulnerable and a high level of respect for those with beliefs and experiences different from their own.

Nicole Galicia ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science and sociology.

Advertisements
Leave a Comment
Donate to The Badger Herald

Your donation will support the student journalists of University of Wisconsin-Madison. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to The Badger Herald

Comments (0)

All The Badger Herald Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *