Stellenbosch University gets the award of UNESCO Chair on Intercultural Competences
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Chair in Intercultural Competences has been awarded to Stellenbosch University (SU). An SU affiliated distinguished fellow from the USA, Dr Darla Deardorff, will be the Chairholder with Co-Chairholder Professor Sarah Howie, Director of the ACS.
The Chair will be housed within the Africa Centre for Scholarship (ACS) in Stellenbosch University International (SU International).
The announcement of the UNESCO Chair was made during the annual Stellenbosch International Academic Network (SIAN) meeting where 77 international universities joined SU International to celebrate 30 years of internationalisation at SU. Recently a delegation from the South African National Commission for UNESCO visited SU to meet with the new UNESCO Chair’s Stellenbosch team.
The UNESCO Chair, awarded for a four-year period from 2023 to 2027, forms part of the global UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme. This programme involves a network of some 900 institutions in over 120 countries and promotes international inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities through knowledge-sharing and collaborative work in education, the natural and social sciences, culture and communication.
The inauguration of the UNESCO Chair at SU will take place in August 2023.
Intercultural competences
The UNESCO Chair in Intercultural Competences will draw on the expertise of the Chairholder, Dr Deardorff, a world-renowned expert on intercultural competence*, along with the expertise of Co-Chairholder Prof Howie in integrating in-depth knowledge of intercultural competencies, educational research and capacity development in Africa.
The Chair will promote an integrated system of research, teaching and training, as well as community engagement and communication. It will facilitate collaboration between high-level, internationally recognised researchers and teaching staff of SU and other institutions in the region and in other regions of the world.
According to Deardorff, research to date on intercultural and global competence, often focuses on knowledge, along with skills, and attitudes. “Increasingly, there is research about social-emotional learning, emotional intelligence, and discussion around empathy and compassion. This, coupled with conversations around intersectionalities and the overlay of justice, equity, diversity, belonging, and inclusion, yields many research questions that need further investigation. The UNESCO Chair intends to work with partners internationally to delve further into some key questions to move from research to concrete practice, which in the end, points to our shared humanity,” Deardorff explained.
She shared the intention of the UNESCO Chair to re-think the lens of intercultural competence. “Our interconnectedness allows us to shift our perspective. For instance, what if we viewed others through the lens of neighbour, both our local and global neighbours? And what does it take to get along together – as neighbours? This could shift our way of thinking about intercultural competence as some abstract concept and make it more real.”
Global network
Howie said the Chair will convene a global network of researchers and practitioners to develop joint projects on intercultural competences with an African and gender equality focus to develop and assess intercultural competency within the classroom, in the curriculum and within communities. “We will also work on projects where intercultural competencies may be less strong as an opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration, for example by addressing gender equity, conflict and climate change, in order to strengthen intercultural competencies associated with the implementation of these projects,” Howie said.
Deardorff added that the Chair intends to also contribute to institutional development by strengthening intercultural competencies among relevant stakeholders and competencies through North-South-South and South-South university collaboration. “The UNESCO Chair of Intercultural Competences at Stellenbosch University presents a unique opportunity and platform for building on the intercultural efforts already undertaken and to extend and leverage this opportunity in collaboration with global partners to delve further into research to praxis, to build intercultural capacity within this continent in order to build a better world together,” Deardorff said.