This volume brings together a representative set of the papers given at the third annual Intercultural Horizons conference held in Siena, Italy, in October 2013. The conference attracted presenters and attendees from a variety of nations throughout five continents. The papers included in this volume are drawn from a series of conference sessions in which academicians and practitioners in the field offered theoretical analyses, case studies and other perspectives on intercultural studies, civic engagement and related topics. The volume is divided into four sections: Theoretical Considerations of Intercultural Competence and Interculturalism; Intercultural Development and Assessment: Practical Examples and Research; Civic Engagement in International and Culturally Diverse Contexts; and Intercultural Education and Training. The reader will find that most of the papers address a variety of intercultural topics beyond their specific chapter designations. In particular, the theme of second language acquisition, education and use was an overarching theme that emerged from a large number of papers and presentations, specifically with regards to the complexities now faced by intercultural educators and researchers as a result of the increasing dominance of English as a “lingua franca” both in academe and many nations.

This volume features a collection of papers from the second annual Intercultural Horizons conference held in October 2012 in New York City (USA). The 2012 conference was the second in what is becoming an annual series of meetings, and the present volume therefore is a companion to one issued last year by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Intercultural Horizons: Best Practices in Intercultural Competence Development, 2012). The papers included in this volume reflect a diversity of approaches both to intercultural education in the North American setting and to its application in service-learning and related contexts in diverse cultural settings in other nations. Our authors provide faculty and student perspectives, primarily from the level of postsecondary education but including a look as well at intercultural education at the primary level. Many of the papers focus in one way or another on issues of curriculum, teaching and learning in relation to developing intercultural competence in students in North American colleges and universities, particularly though not exclusively through the use of service-learning. All of the papers touch in one way or another on another important development now affecting almost all institutions of higher education in North America and, increasingly, in other nations worldwide—that of the university’s engagement with the community. During the past thirty years, such engagement has moved from the periphery to the core of many North American colleges and universities. Similar efforts are now emerging among many Asian universities and in Europe as well. The paper in this volume on the Polisocial initiative at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy is a good example of how the theme of university-community engagement is taking hold in a city and nation facing similar intercultural and economic challenges to those in North America—and serves as a preview of themes the International Center for Intercultural Exchange hopes to explore in its future conferences. www.ticfie.com

This volume originates from the fourth and fifth Intercultural Horizons conferences, held in New York and Sardinia, respectively. It reflects a diverse array of research, case studies and theoretical reflections on intercultural studies, civic engagement and varied perspectives on migration issues in the Mediterranean region. The book will be of interest to a broad audience both within and beyond academia, including researchers of intercultural education and communication, service-learning and related issues; college and university administrators responsible for intercultural and service-learning initiatives; and students enrolled in intercultural and service-learning courses. The papers within will also be useful to persons who serve as intercultural mediators, including trainers and coaches involved in intercultural studies in business and other non-academic settings.

Skills for Academic and Career Success focuses on the essential skills you need to be successful in your studies and in your future career. This original textbook aims to improve and enhance your study skills; it also introduces some important aspects of business and professional communication. An integrated approach is used to bring together these key fields of academic skills and business communication competency. The emphasis throughout the book is on practical, applied learning. It has been developed to complement Australian tertiary education curricula in the areas of study skills and professional communication and is designed to enhance learning outcomes for students within the Australian and Pan-Asian context.

This new book is based upon clinical practice, teaching research and scholarly work undertaken over a period of 10 years. The leading author wrote a doctoral dissertation on much of the material described in this book, but until now it has only been published in scholarly articles within refereed journals. Gerald Monk and John Winslade have jointly published three textbooks, including Narrative therapy in practice: The archaeology of hope (Jossey-Bass), Narrative counseling in the schools (Corwin Press), and Narrative mediation (Jossey-Bass) and numerous other publications. Gerald Monk and Stacey Sinclair have jointly published two book chapters and three articles in widely disseminated referred journals.

Introducing the concept of ‘multicultural intimacies’, this book offers a new form of critical engagement with the cultural politics of multiculturalism, one that attends to ideals of mixing, loving thy neighbour and feelings for the nation. In the first study of its kind, Fortier considers the anxieties, desires, and issues that form representations of ‘multicultural Britain’ available in the public domain.

Indigenous peoples around the world are calling for control over their education in order to reaffirm their identities and defend their rights. In Latin America the indigenous peoples, national governments and international organisations have identified intercultural education as a means of contributing to this process. The book investigates education for and by indigenous peoples and examines the relationship between theoretical and methodological developments and formal practice. An ethnographic study of the Arakmbut people of the Peruvian Amazon, provides a detailed example of the social, cultural and educational change indigenous peoples are experiencing, an insight into Arakmbut oral learning and teaching practices as well as a review of their conceptualisations of knowledge, pedagogy and evaluation. The models of intercultural education being promoted by Latin American governments are, nevertheless, biliterate and school-based. The book analyses indigenous and non-indigenous models based on different conceptualisations of culture and curriculum in the context of the Arakmbut search for an education which respects their dynamic oral cultural traditions and identity, provides them with a qualitatively relevant education about the wider society and addresses the intercultural lives they lead.