ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a model for understanding cultural change and continuity that begins with developing the intercultural competence necessary for establishing a greater sense of identity inclusivity in order to engage more responsibly in relationships of transformative reciprocity. It posits that interdisciplinary intercultural competence is necessary for engaging responsibly as global citizens with the human family and living planet to maintain and strengthen the world's diversity both cultural and ecological. The study of cultural values reveals the underlying rationale and import of different worldviews, and, in this way, the intercultural learner's attention shifts towards recognising best practices in preference to the identification of negative deficiencies. The chapter further proposes that interdisciplinary intercultural competence represents powerful praxes for generating collaborative capacity with the potential to transcend binaries such as self and other, modern and traditional, science and humanities, local and global. An inclusive identity that encompasses a rooted cosmopolitanism and bi-orientationalism provides an important link between intercultural competence and global citizenship.
