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The Four Competences

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Intercultural Readiness

Abstract

The competences that are key to successfully interacting with people from other cultures build on the skills we use when we interact with people from our own culture, in our careers and personal relationships. But these intercultural competences are more than general interpersonal skills: they demand of us that we constantly anticipate how cultural differences may be affecting our interaction, and that while we look for similarities between us and the other in order to build common ground, we must neither ignore our cultural differences nor forget that the people involved come from different groups and cultures.

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Notes

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© 2014 Ursula Brinkmann and Oscar van Weerdenburg

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Brinkmann, U., van Weerdenburg, O. (2014). The Four Competences. In: Intercultural Readiness. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137346988_4

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