MOOC (UNIT 1-3)

• Christina Armutlieva represents Varna University of Management
• Ayşe Deniz Ozkan is the Vice Director for Global Education and Partnerships
• György Túry represents Budapest Metropolitan University located in Budapest, Hungary
• Grzegorz Klapyta is the head of the International Relations Office at the Silesian University of Technology
• Nedka Dimitrova is a teacher of Intercultural Awareness and Business Communications
• VUM, Varna University of Management, is the project coordinator and initiator of the IACD MOOC project
• The MOOC is dedicated to Intercultural Awareness and Cultural Diversity
• The Intercultural Passport is a certificate enabling crossing cultural borders
• Main objectives of the MOOC include helping students improve their intercultural competencies
• The MOOC aims to build bridges between Europe and Asia through internationalisation
• The MOOC focuses on research in the field of Cross-cultural studies
• The MOOC aims to develop global competencies and intercultural communication skills in students
• The main task is to encourage understanding and learning about other cultures and one's own
• The MOOC is practice-oriented and aims to equip students with skills for communication in a multicultural environment
• The MOOC provides a theoretical introduction to cross-cultural studies
• The MOOC combines practical and theoretical aspects to provide valuable experiences
• Unit 2 focuses on the concepts of culture and approaches in defining culture
• Dr. Nedka Dimitrova discusses intercultural communicative competence (ICC) as the ability to interact with people from another country and culture in a foreign language
• Key skills and qualities for ICC include empathy, respect, tolerance, sensitivity, and flexibility
• Individuals possess a fixed system of beliefs based on previous experiences in a cultural environment
• Identity in intercultural communication involves "Me", "Myself", and "I"
• Identity representation includes individual, interpersonal, and group self
• Cultural differences in the perception of self can cause confusion and misunderstanding
• Individualistic and collectivistic views impact personal accomplishments
• Cultural groups include country of origin, ethnic group, race, gender, religion, education, family, age, languages spoken
• Prof. Michael Minkov discusses the importance of studying culture and different definitions of culture
• Prof. Michael Minkov explains major models of national culture and cultural differences across the world
• Prof. Michael Minkov: 'Why we need to study culture? Definitions of culture, how culture is understood by different scientists, how it is studied. Explain the major models of national culture, which explain cultural differences across the world and the consequences or implications of those differences. Understand our cultural differences and respect them.'
• Culture was perceived as something consisting of different meanings. For instance, if you wink at somebody, this may have one meaning in one culture, but a completely different meaning in another culture.
• Culture


  In anthropology and cross-cultural psychology and cross-cultural management, culture is about behaviors, rituals, meanings, symbols, values, beliefs, feelings, attitudes, and other invisible things that drive behavior
• Classic anthropology


  Focuses on the surface of the onion, studying institutions, symbols, meanings, and practices
• Cross-Cultural psychology


  Focuses on what is inside the onion, such as values, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings
• Modern anthropology


  Focuses on questionnaires to reveal what is inside people's minds, studying values, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings
• Cultural differences are mostly due to different levels of economic development and education rather than different religions
• Dr. Nedka Dimitrova: 'The main purpose of this course is to help you develop a better awareness of how culture shapes our attitudes, values, and behavior'
• Culture, as defined by Edward Tylor, is a complex whole including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society
• Franz Boas introduced the views of cultural relativism, seeing culture and human behavior as conditioned and acquired solely through unconscious learning. All cultures are equally developed according to their own priorities and values
• In modern anthropology, human behavior can be understood through culture as a collective phenomenon which includes language and symbolic codes adopted by people, consisting of learned behaviors transmitted from generation to generation within a particular cultural group
• Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov maintain that "Culture is learned, not innate" and is fundamentally shaped by people's social environment, bridging human nature and individual's personality
• Commonly cited definitions of culture include "Culture consists of the unwritten rules of the social game" and "Culture is the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, transmitted from generation to generation"