The Wiley Handbook of Collaborative Online Learning and Global Engagement

6 I Am Because We Are: Discovering Self and Others Through Study of Global Conflict

Deirdre Johnston¹ and Dagmar Kusa²

¹ Hope College, USA

² Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts, Slovakia

The essence of intercultural education is the acquisition of empathy – the ability to see the world as others see it, and to allow for the possibility that others may see something we have failed to see, or may see it more accurately.

Fulbright, J. William., The Price of Empire (1967, p. 231).

A chance meeting at a dinner in Athens, a strategy session at the site of the former SS and Gestapo headquarters, a conversation at the “Topography of Terror” outdoor installation in Berlin, and an information gathering trip to South Africa may sound like an international spy novel, but was in fact the unfolding inspiration for the development of a globally-connected course on peace and conflict studies. Narratives of Conflict, Peace, and Justice in Post-Apartheid South Africa connects students in three different countries for a learning experience that integrates academic research with novels, films, and travel. Using a pedagogical approach we call 3-D Cultural Perspective Learning, students expand their understanding through exploring other cultural contexts (through width), comparing their own experience, identity, and cultural context with others (through depth), and seeing their personal and cultural identities through the lenses of others (through height) (see Figure 6.1). In this ...