12 minutes
Move beyond noticing only visible difference Identify cultural assumptions that remain when visible differences are overlooked.
What you’ll be able to do Identify cultural assumptions that remain when visible differences are overlooked. Distinguish a developmental learning question from an individual assessment. Describe a practice that makes unfamiliar perspectives easier to notice. Move beyond noticing only visible difference People sometimes notice culture only through food, clothing, or language and miss assumptions about knowledge, relationships, authority, and responsibility. A person may sincerely believe everyone in a group is essentially the same because the differences that matter have not yet become visible to them. The useful response is to broaden observation, not to shame the person for what they have not learned.
The Intercultural Development Continuum describes Denial as a limited recognition of cultural difference and includes other orientations through Acceptance and Adaptation. These concepts can guide the kinds of questions offered in learning. They do not authorize a facilitator to assign an individual a stage after hearing one comment. This course is not the licensed assessment, and its exercises do not produce an IDI result.
Practice noticing a difference in interpretation before debating its importance. Ask how two people understand a respectful disagreement, a family obligation, or credible evidence. Listen for the reasoning rather than collecting unusual customs. You can use fictional cases or voluntary accounts so that no participant must reveal personal beliefs. The aim is to make more of the situation available to your attention. As that happens, a familiar explanation becomes one possibility among others. You may still decide that a particular method fits the task best, but you will be better able to explain the decision and consider what it asks of people whose expectations differ.
A fictional example to examine Fictional case: A team says it has no cultural differences because everyone speaks English and works in the same division. During a discussion of decision-making, one member expects individual initiative while another expects consultation before acting. The contrast reveals different understandings of responsibility within the same workplace. The facilitator can explore when each approach helps without labeling either person’s IDI orientation. Shared language and employment do not establish identical assumptions, and learning about the difference need not become a contest over whose upbringing was better.
Practice and review Choose a fictional decision about consulting others. Write two reasonable interpretations of responsibility and one question that would reveal which expectation applies. Practice describing the difference without assigning a stage to either person. Identify a setting in your own life where you might observe a similar assumption while preserving others’ privacy.
Private reflection Which differences tend to escape your notice because the people around you appear familiar? What could you ask about meaning rather than appearance?
Carry this forward People sometimes notice culture only through food, clothing, or language and miss assumptions about knowledge, relationships, authority, and responsibility.
The Intercultural Development Continuum describes Denial as a limited recognition of cultural difference and includes other orientations through Acceptance and Adaptation.
Practice noticing a difference in interpretation before debating its importance.
Choose a fictional decision about consulting others. Write two reasonable interpretations of responsibility and one question that would reveal which expectation applies. Practice describing the difference without assigning a stage to either person. Identify a setting in your own life where you might observe a similar assumption while preserving others’ privacy.
Choose a fictional decision about consulting others. Write two reasonable interpretations of responsibility and one question that would reveal which expectation applies. Practice describing the difference without assigning a stage to either person. Identify a setting in your own life where you might observe a similar assumption while preserving others’ privacy.
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Previous lesson Next lesson Carry this into practice Recognize when familiar ways of living become universal judgments and practice a more contextual interpretation.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
