Identity Construction as Nexus of Multimembership: Attempts at Reconciliation Through an Online Intercultural Communication Course

Abstract

Using situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) as our theoretical framework, we focused on two female graduate students in applied linguistics as each attempted to negotiate memberships in multiple communities during an international exchange program. Eleven students at six universities took part in an internet-based intercultural communication course in addition to courses at their host universities, generating data in the form of online postings, final course papers, e-mails to the instructor, and retrospective evaluations. Ines, a Mexican student in Canada, appeared to reconcile her identity successfully as a nexus of multimembership. Adrienne, a U.S. student living in Mexico, attempted to participate in practices at her host university but felt marginalized. Our analysis demonstrates the difficulty, complexity, and sometimes the impossibility of reconciliation as a process for weaving a nexus of multimembership into one identity when encountering new practices across national borders.

Keywords:

• language teacher
• identity
• communities of practice
• intercultural communication
• computer-mediated communication
• distance learning

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the participants in the exchange program for allowing us to tell their stories. We also thank Lauren Lukkarila for organizing the data, Diane Belcher for providing feedback on manuscript drafts, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and thorough comments. Gayle gratefully acknowledges the dedication, vision, and work of Ashley Withers in co-creating and following through with this three-year project. Neither the exchange nor the online intercultural course would have happened without her.

Notes

¹Students participating in the program signed human subjects' consent forms that had gone through the university's IRB committee.

²Hereafter, target community or target CoP refers specifically to the community in the host university (usually members of a class and their instructor) that the exchange student observed and analyzed for the final project. Host community or communities is used more broadly.

³The data source for all data is the online postings unless another source is given.