We are all shaped by different and complex cultural background. Our interpretation, behaviours, social values and assumptions can be difficult to understand by an outside perspective. Cultural exchange and cultural awareness can provide a lot of opportunities for us to explore the new culture, for example, the language, food, music, history or even people's perspective and attitudes. Even within the same culture, peoples' behaviour, values and beliefs could be varying enormously. If we ignore the impact of cultural differences and only consider our way as the best one, misunderstanding and disputes may easily raised. Thus, we should learn to see or value things from another culture's perspective. Cultural awareness can help everyone of us to explore and interact with people from other cultures and make a harmony atmosphere.
There are no specific rules or regulations for us to be cultural diversity, but there are a few cross-cultural awareness we should considered. First, we should be aware of our own cultural influences. Second, we should be aware of making assumptions about others' cultural and applying generalisations to anyone. Third, we should be aware of not to judge others' values, beliefs or behaviour by using our own culture standards or before any evaluation. Understanding others
culture may takes times, the easiest way to get to have cultural exchange is to speak to people from others' country, learn ones' language, or go travelling.
There is different definition of the term 'global competence'. It was defined as "having an open mind while actively seeking to understand cultural norms and expectations of others, leveraging this gained knowledge to interact, communicate and work effectively outside one's environment" by the international panel of experts. Some Catholic may think to add "for the purpose of promoting human solidarity" at the end of the sentences, and some argue that the definition merely focused on intercultural competences. To be global competence, certain knowledge, skills, attitudes and experiences are required. We should able to understand the interconnectedness of peoples and systems, and have a general knowledge of history and certain world events, and have an open mind to accept and code with the different cultural values, beliefs.
To make the bridge among different peoples of the world closer, we should train future members to have a deeper understand of global citizenship. Education to the future is an important process, which included understanding moral values and human rights, it should be universally acceptable and applicable must take place in the center of education. Everyone should prioritize that universal fact in long term global is much more important than personal interests. In the learning process, we should first understand "who" is a global citizen and know the characteristics of it. Also, we should take responsibility for our actions. Everyone should aware of the wider world, not only understanding the events happening in the world, but also participates in the community.
However, although education is important for global competence, there is limitation too. How can we ensure that the education is effective and sufficient? When should the education of global citizenship start? Education about global citizenship is limited, especially in Asia area like China. It is mainly because people don't see the immediate consequences of these problems, so they tried to distance themselves from the issues. Also, global issues seem immensely insurmountable and depressing, thus people may think that we alone cannot have much influences on them. Third, people may try to avoid political issues that are different from their conventionally accepted traditional beliefs, especially people from a conventionalism culture. Finally, the educators may not usually been taught about the global responsibility and social issues in their own experiences, so if the educator do not investigate and analyze the economic and social institutions in the lives, it would be difficult for them to foster these behaviors in others.
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