Still a “Sensitive” Subject? Unpacking Strengths and Struggles of Intercultural Communication Pedagogies

Abstract

This study challenges the separation of pedagogy and theory by researching intercultural communication pedagogies (ICP). We explore the strengths, weaknesses, and unrealized potentiality of ICP, through narratives from intercultural educators across the United States. Interviews with 20 intercultural communication teachers, from a variety of ranks, are utilized to detail how intersectional identities and narrative approaches to teaching strengthen the overarching field of intercultural communication, while intercultural pedagogs as a whole still struggle to create pedagogies of resistance across differential positionalities. Implications of these findings for ICP as a mode of scholarly inquiry are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Intercultural communication
• pedagogy
• critical Intercultural communication pedagogy