Jeniffer Sams-Harrison

East Tennessee State University

Multi-Cultural Education – EDCI 4900 – Fall 2009
September 14, 2009

Designing Educational Cases for Intercultural

Information Ethics: The Importance of Diversity,
Perspectives, Values, and Pluralism

Summary

In summation of the article “Designing Educational

Cases for Intercultural Information Ethics: The Importance

of Diversity, Perspectives, Values, and Pluralism”, the

authors delve into the ethics and concepts of education in

an ever changing globalized and diversified classroom. The

information for this article was gathered over the course of

two semesters in an Ethics class at the University of

Maryland in the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008.

The students in the above listed class were utilized to

test the authors’ theories, postulate their findings and then

give analysis on those findings. The information contained

in the findings is quite informative and insightful. The

section of the paper titled “Future Directions” proposes

options for further study and future direction in

implementing educational diversity in regard to thought,

theory, methodology, and intercultural education in our ever

growing globalized classroom.

Reflection

This article has expanded my current perspective and

knowledge of diversity in the classroom and ways to

implement a global perspective in the classroom,

community projects, and personal interactions. While the

case studied ways for students to understand the

perspective of other races, cultures, religions, etc. inside

the educational setting, many of the findings are, in my

opinion, imperative to the global citizens our children are

rapidly becoming.

By reading information gathered from one semester

which contained primarily international students to the

following semester which contained primarily domestic

(American) students I was quite surprised by the differences

in the information collected for each group. Both study

groups claimed to have a better insight into the other group

members’ perspectives and values. The class containing

all domestic students did, however; demonstrate less

cultural sensitivity in the cases and discussions related to

international issues than the class containing a mix of

international students and domestic students. Both groups

indicated a better understanding when considering a broad

scope of ethical perspectives and values in regard to

people of different cultures and individual variations. The

students additionally conveyed a further understanding of

ethical issues beyond their prior views.

Since today’s and the future’s classrooms are more

and more global in nature it is imperative that teachers,

students, community leaders, and parents incorporate a

“global” and diversified perspective and direction which

exceeds the scope of their nuclear community. Activities

which involve guided scenarios, questions, and exploration

of other cultures, ethnic groups, religions, customs, etc.

would better prepare students and teachers alike for the

global community which is growing exponentially.

Fleischmann, Kenneth R., Robbins, Russell W., & Wallace,

William A. (2009). Designing Educational Cases for
Intercultural Information Ethics: The Importance of
Diversity, Perspectives, Values, and Pluralism. Journal
of education for library and information science, 1 (50),
4-14.