ICCMIN

ABOUT MEDIATION: Mediation process is a unique convergence that can (re)shape participants’ lifeworlds, namely values, beliefs and principles forming new social spaces of engagement through reciprocal communication and understanding. In this context, mediators assist parties from different cultural contexts to understand one another by becoming aware of (own) biases towards processes, persons, behaviors and outcomes and to engage in effective communication and action (Arvanitis, 2014; Sani, 2015).

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Modern mobility affects societies both structurally and culturally. It challenges social cohesion and national identity building. However, cultural identities are highly shaped by diversity. Modern citizens and non-citizens sooner or later enter into an act of reconstructing national and cultural identity where local perspectives and otherness ought to be considered (Baraldi & Rossi, 2011). The important point here is to enable the use of their communication and mediation skills so to interact with each other in an open, reciprocal, inclusive and self-reflexive way. Intercultural dialogue and mediation can build a balanced relationship between parties of different cultures and a new social space where cultural transformation may occur.

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The above skills can be summarized to the model of intercultural competence that is used to look for evidence of specific attitudes, skills and knowledge that shape an intercultural speaker (Byram, 1997:58-64).

In brief, the model of intercultural competence consists of five elements with the first two functioning as preconditions for successful intercultural/interlingual interaction and the rest as necessary skills:

• attitudes: relativise self and value other; suspend belief in own and disbelief in other’s behaviours, beliefs and values
• knowledge: of own and other’s behaviours, beliefs and values; of how each is seen by other – comparative methods.
• of interpreting and relating ‘documents’/‘texts’ based on existing knowledge and attitudes
• of discovering (in own time or in interaction) new behaviours, beliefs and values
• of interacting in real time based on other preconditions and skills
• the responsibility of the teacher to develop ‘critical cultural awareness’ (Byram, 1997:58).