No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND GENDER STUDIES FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC ACADEMIC EDUCATION IN ROMANIA
Abstract
Intercultural communication and gender studies are a must for business and economic academic education in Romania nowadays for obvious reasons: the world of transnational communication systems and of globalized economic, social and health issues is increasingly becoming a space of intercultural encounters, and students, as well as professors, are more and more exposed to different cultural mindsets and behaviours.
This article proposes the introduction of intercultural communication and gender studies in academic education in Romania. Although ideally they could be included in business academic education in an integrative manner, within an interdisciplinary and underlying model of intercultural and gender mainstreaming and capacity building, unfortunately that is not possible at the moment. Thus, one simple solution would be to create as many modular courses as possible, and to hope that in time a more integrative model will be initiated and put into practice. Another possibility of integrating concepts from these two subjects could be done through foreign languages education, mainly through teaching English for business communication, as this language is the most studied one in Romanian business and economics universities. From the methodological point of view, the focus should be on a learner-centered approach, through which learners internalize their already acquired knowledge and find their motivation and ability to enhance it. At the same time, assessment of intercultural communication and gender studies could be done in parallel with assessment of English language content, and it could be rendered more relevant by taking into consideration the way students learn, thus including informal and non-formal educational contexts. Self-assessment and peer-assessment, besides teacher assessment, could be used to increase students’ confidence in work ethics and fair treatment.
The article also presents the findings of two small-scale studies (2009, 2012) I conducted with students of two master’s programmes and students of bachelor programmes of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. The findings show the openness of these students in the largest business and economics university in Romania to the introduction of modular courses of both Intercultural Communication and Gender Studies. Together with their study within language learning programmes, this could constitute valid models for the acquisition of these skills in academic economic education in this country.
Keywords: intercultural communication, gender studies, international English, learner-centred approach, integrative assessment
... Plagiarism is also a constant issue in the public space and is perceived as a plague in the system of higher education. The discussion about content and skills in the BUES curricula has been often presented in Nicolae (2014Nicolae ( , 2015 and Marinescu (2016Marinescu ( , 2017 among others. The sad truth, however, is that little can be done in the absence of a sustainable and realistic vision for the specific mission of higher education institutions in Romania, backed by predictability of the process and, very important, by a financial mechanism that allows universities, clearly within an accountable and transparent framework, to be able to compete with efficiently on the educational market. ...
Today’s world is clearly fractured whether we are looking at it through economic, political, cultural or educational lenses. This is in no way something new. The world has always been in this state, but the speed with which it reacted to real or perceived threats and tried to change accordingly was barely perceivable and, therefore, easier to adopt and adapt to. Today those changes happen with incredible speed and our reactions to them may not be informed or educated and are usually taken by leaders who are, at best, controversial and at worst obviously partial to their own, petty interests against the greater public good they vowed to serve. What can higher education do in such a world? Artificial intelligence (AI) is making huge progress and, although education at all levels is lagging behind in meaningfully adopting AI and working with it, the educational system is expected to react to a world divided by the fear of AI using big data, claiming jobs, and ushering in the era of loss of human supremacy or by the glorification of AI which is only a tool, fast developing indeed, but permanently controlled by human intelligence. Even if that human intelligence is concentrated into fewer and fewer human decision makers thus contributing to the already huge gap of inequality existing in today’s world. The present paper will explore issues related to the way in which the leadership of higher education chooses to handle today’s challenges and will use the home university of the authors to illustrate what happens in Romanian universities. The discussion will be informed by the authors’ own experience in the higher education system as well as by an analysis of various discourses and narratives belonging to different stakeholders, discussing those issues in various inter/national media. The paper will offer some recommendations.
The present-day globalized society and its extremely competitive labour market pose numerous challenges which universities should be able to anticipate, reflect on and address in a consistent and coherent manner. It becomes increasingly clear that to be successful, graduates should show flexibility, openness, autonomy, self-determination and empowerment, while constantly demonstrating they are engaged in active democratic citizenship along with being prepared for their specialized subject. This chapter explores the opportunities offered by coherently integrating these transversal skills and trans-curricular competences within language learning programmes with the aim of better preparing graduates for democratic citizenship. Also, it outlines a possible methodology: integrating education for active citizenship and plurilingual competence at university level can be done through specially dedicated subject courses of intercultural communication, gender studies or cultural studies and connecting them to language learning syllabi, as tools to develop self-reflection and autonomy-building strategies for students, in order to enable them to take over their own learning and thus better cope with the challenging labour market facing them.
Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters, Language Policy Division. Strasbourg, www.coe.int/lang
Council of Europe, 2009. Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters, Language Policy Division.
Strasbourg, www.coe.int/lang, accessed on 9 January 2015
Council
of
Europe,
European
Language
Portfolio
homepage,
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/elp/elp-reg/CEFR_EN.asp#TopOfPage, accessed on 9 January
2015
Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education, The Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe
- J.-C Beacco
- M Byram
- M Cavalli
- D Coste
- M E Cuenat
- F Goullier
- J Panthier
Beacco, J.-C., Byram, M., Cavalli, M., Coste, D., Cuenat, M.E., Goullier, F. and Panthier, J., 2010.
Guide for the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural
education, The Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe. Geneva, Switzerland,
www.coe.int/lang, accessed on 10 January 2015
The cultural and intercultural dimensions of language teaching: current practice and prospects, text presented at the Seminar on "Curriculum convergences for plurilingual and intercultural education
- Jean-Claude Beacco
Beacco, Jean-Claude. The cultural and intercultural dimensions of language teaching: current
practice and prospects, text presented at the Seminar on "Curriculum convergences for plurilingual
and intercultural education", Strasbourg, 29-30 November 2011, www.coe.int/lang, accessed on 10
January 2015
Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education
- P Lenz
- R Berthele
Lenz, P., Berthele, R., 2010. Assessment in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education, Council of
Europe, Language Policy Division. Strasbourg, www.coe.int/lang, accessed on 9 January 2015
Intercultural Communication in Business and Economic Studies
- R Marinescu
Marinescu, R., 2009. Intercultural Communication in Business and Economic Studies, "Language,
Culture and Change", Iaşi: Ed. Timpul, pp. 60 -65
Teachers' Role In Foreign Languages And Business Communication Education and Life-Long Learning in the Knowledge-Based Society
- R-E Marinescu
Marinescu, R-E., 2010. Teachers' Role In Foreign Languages And Business Communication
Education and Life-Long Learning in the Knowledge-Based Society, CD "Languages as a Lifeskill -New Perspectives on LSP Teaching and Learning" Bucharest: Ed. ASE, pp. 609-619
A Concept of International English and Related Issues: from Real English to Realistic English
- B Seidlhofer
Seidlhofer, B., 2003. A Concept of International English and Related Issues: from Real English to
Realistic English, Council of Europe, Language Policy Division. Strasbourg, www.coe.int/lang,
accessed on 9 January 2015