ABSTRACT
As our world continues to be shaped by ever-increasing encounters between people of different cultural backgrounds, the need to address the challenges of intercultural engagement becomes crucial. The growing interconnectedness of our globalizing world demands skills and resources for developing intercultural relationships of mutual respect and benefit. Such relationships require openness to learning about cultural values and behavioral patterns different from one’s own, and a willingness to recognize one’s own cultural preferences as particular rather than universal. It also requires a commitment to examining the inequitable power dynamics that emerge from social structures historically grounded in the legacy of colonialism and Western white hegemony.
