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TRAMP – Transnational Mobility of Older People in Europe
102 Part II
Intercultural learning targeted on the strengthening of intercultural competence
in European countries often had its origin in situations caused by labour
migration – often in order to integrate foreign workers as fast as possible
-, whereas the term of “integration” often actually had the meaning of assimilation
to the “leading culture” (Nieke 2000: 14). Over the years intercultural
learning was more and more regarded as a process of interaction which asks
its share from the immigrants as well as from the receiving society. In the
course of globalization more and more training programmes have been developed
which are supposed to help companies to simplify their employees’ stay
abroad by conveying information about the foreign country and its customs.
In the context of Diversity Managements (Becker et al. 2006) intercultural
learning begins to play a major role within worldwide acting companies. In the
last few decades young people often get systematical training in order to be
able to study abroad or to join an international youth exchange. Older people
are rarely chosen as a target group, although one might regard exchange
programmes in the field of education for older people or other projects such
as the Grundtvig programme of the EU as a starting point. In order to motivate
older people for intercultural learning processes, exercises were chosen
that were indeed interactive, but not so juvenile that they would only appeal
to adolescents. Moreover, they leave plenty of space for experience of which
older people can bring in much more than younger people. Accordingly, the
seniors attach great importance to discussions and the development of creative
ideas as for example strategies to solve intercultural conflicts. People often
assume that bias in older people is more consolidated and therefore harder to
prove wrong than in adolescents. Since in exchange programmes most of the
participants are probably open to international encounters, the main aim will
be to raise their awareness of the specific features of communication processes
and to convey (exemplary) information about other cultures. At least as much
as in youth exchange programmes older people can be expected to be an open
and adaptive audience.
The particular situation of the European exchange was included in the
reflection on appropriate methods. Unlike in the context of migration, the
focus is not on the integration of a minority into the – dominant – host society.
Here, people meet who are in the situation of the guest and stranger for a
while, and then in that of a host on home soil and who have to adjust to each
other only for a short visit in each case. Consequently, intercultural training
aims less at dealing with culture shock and integrational guidance, but rather
at reaching a maximum of successful communication in the shortest time –
with the ultimate goal of raising interest in other cultures and of discovering
the common ground of Europe while taking into account existing differences.
Therefore exercises were chosen which raise the awareness of cultural peculiarities
that can be observed in Europe and which help to avoid misunderstandings
in daily contact.
An essential component of the selected methods for exchange situations is
the work on case studies which partly come from the European context, yet
some of them also portray contacts with non-European cultures. This does