Interculturality in Institutions

This book provides qualitative analyses of intercultural sense making in a variety of institutional contexts. Itrelies onthe assumption that in an increasingly culturally diverse world, individuals often enter contexts that havecommunal, historically determined and stable sets of values, norms and expected identities, with little cultural compass to find their bearings in them. The book goes beyond interpreting differences in people's ethnic orlinguistic roots and discusses instead people's interpretive efforts to navigate different sociocultural situations. The contributors examine such situations in educational, organizational, medical and community settings andlook at how participants with different levels of sociocultural competences(such as, migrant patients, migrant adult learners, children)try to cope with institutional constraints and expectations, how they understandsymbols, practices and identities in institutional contexts,and how their creative adjustments come to light. This book provides insights from the fields of psychology, education, anthropology and linguistics, and is for a wide readership interested in cultural meaning-making.