The concepts of conflict and resolution vary from culture to culture. Yesterday I posted at Brains On Purpose™ about cross-cultural conflict resolution and some ways to assess cultural differences. Almost exactly a year ago, I posted here at idealawg on cross-cultural awareness and how easy it is for us to make assumptions about what might be universal. I believe that as the world becomes more global, cultural awareness becomes increasingly important.
In last year's post, I linked to an article about a seminar I presented to a group of lawyer mediators on the topic of cross-cultural mediation. In the article, I discuss four questions people who are culturally sensitive can answer with deep self-awareness, as well as with knowledge about such things as: cultural influence on the mind, attribution theory, self-fulfilling prophecy, one's personal comfort zone, reasons for resistance to change, stereotyping, confirmation bias, and in-group/out-group.
Those questions are:
- What is your own personal heritage?
- What is your comfort level with people who are culturally different?
- How much do you know about the tendencies of your own mind?
- Do you know that the ways of your own culture are not universal?
I have learned that those questions are revisited and the responses modified as we become more culturally sensitive. In the beginning, they sound easy.
I ended the article with some assumptions mediators might have and why, with some cultures, the assumptions would need to be questioned. An excerpt:
As we learn more about culture, we will continue to be surprised at what we thought was universal and in fact is not. . . .
For example, in many other cultures:
- Confidentiality would not make sense;
- Ownership of the dispute (and the responsibility to resolve it) would not belong to the individual;
- Insight about how the problem came about would not be valued (this is especially surprising for those mediators with a therapeutic bent to their model of mediation);
- Self-disclosure or discussing feelings would be inappropriate (particularly surprising for that same group of mediators).
The more we learn to question our assumptions about what is universal, the more culturally sensitive we can become.
Please let me know what you believe is universal about mediation. I want to hear from you.
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