Why doesn't this feel empowering? The challenges of web-based intercultural dialogue

Abstract

Ellsworth's article entitled ‘Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy’ raises issues about the complex dynamics of implementing critical pedagogy in real classrooms, and the difficulties and paradoxes of putting the empowerment rhetoric into practice. This article analyses the challenges of putting the rhetoric of web-based intercultural dialogue into practice, based on my previous experience as a facilitator and trainer/coach-of-facilitators of such a programme: one which involves web-based video-conferencing dialogue between students from the Arab/Muslim world and those from the US/West.

Keywords:

• intercultural learning
• critical pedagogy
• intercultural dialogue
• social justice
• web-based dialogue

Acknowledgements

I could not have written this paper without the thoughtful exchange of some of the ideas in it with my thesis supervisor, Dr Alan Skelton on the one hand, and the intercultural dialogue programme's coaches and facilitators on the other. The final writing of this paper has been much improved by the thoughtful peer reviewers' feedback.

Notes

1. I choose to keep the programme's name anonymous to preserve privacy. Even though I have permission to use the programme name in my PhD thesis, I did not obtain permission to use the name in other publications.

2. This contains elements of cognitive, intrapersonal/reflective and interpersonal/social development when dealing with different cultures.

3. I intentionally say ‘familiar’ but not necessarily ‘comfortable’, as students from minority backgrounds, or even those who are simply ‘shy’, may be exposed to interactive classrooms but not feel comfortable in them.

4. Had I not been an Egyptian myself, I might have missed this meaning. I was watching a recorded session and so was unable to intervene to correct the misunderstanding.

5. Later iterations of the programme involved students from more countries and therefore more native languages became involved. Also, not all Arab/Muslim facilitators were fluent in Arabic, but other students could do the translation where needed.

6. The context of this quote actually refers to women of colour having different experiences than White women, but I believe it recontextualizes well to other situations of power imbalance.