Emily Connor

16 September 2015
Portfolio Assignment 1
Its all too possible to go through life with no understanding of any culture other
than your own, an understanding beyond common stereotypes or what is read in
textbooks. Until you are immersed in unfamiliar surroundings and territories of people
who do not live the way you do, or do not think the way you do, you simply are unaware
of your ignorance. This is known as unconscious incompetence.
Darla Deardorffs ladder of cultural learning explains 4 levels of cultural
competence. Starting at the ground level of what I just touched upon is unconscious
incompetence. At this level, you are unaware of your inability to recognize and
understand views different from your own, aside from agreeing or disagreeing. Often
times it takes more than cultural immersion to get you past that first level, it requires
serious eye opening or else you will continue to live in the culture as a stranger unaware
of your place or purpose.
The next level is conscious incompetence, the realization that you do live in
somewhat of a bubble with a single lens view of the world. When you recognize your
ignorance and incompetence in another culture, you can begin to reflect on your thoughts,
words and actions and how they may appear to someone in the culture you are living in.
With this recognition, you can move forward towards conscious competence, actively
trying to understand and view things from a different point of view. The next and final
step of the ladder is unconscious competence where you naturally think from multiple
perspectives and respect and understand the cultural you are living in as you would your
own. Each step may take a different amount of time. I see it almost more as a continuum
where you can achieve different levels of success within each step. Some people notice
right away that their way of living is different but not normal, accepting the differences
and unfamiliarity; willingly shifting their mind set to respect and understand, rather than
judge. Others never leave that stage at all and continue to judge based on standards
relative to their own culture as its what they know and have no desire to move away from
that.
In my own experiences during my time abroad in Ireland, I absolutely started in a
stage of unconscious incompetence and am only recently becoming conscious enough of
my ignorance to move towards conscious competence. Its humbling and eye opening to
put aside American standards and ideas of normal and understand the way of life here. I
am envious of the fluency of conversations between locals with the unique sense of
humor and dance within their words.
When you do go from the bottom of the ladder to the top, another way to classify
the transition is shifting your views from ethnocentric to ethno relative. Ethnocentric is
that judgment of another culture based solely on what you think is normal derived from
the values and standards of your own culture. When you become culturally competent,
this shifts to an ethnorelative view, referring to understanding and comfort with many
standards and customs. An ethnorelative person can adapt their behavior and judgments
to many interpersonal settings (Deane). Again, I still balance on the line between
ethnocentric and ethnorelative as sometimes its easy to understand while other times its
easier to judge based on what I know at home. There are days I am up for anything and

open to everything. There are also days when home just feels really far away and my
mind is stuck there, missing what I am comfortable with.
A lot of this difference in thinking and communicating comes from the high
context cultural aspect of the Irish, as we in America are rather low on Halls spectrum.
Halls high and low context theory explains the differences in communications amongst
different cultures. In a low context situation, typical of Americans, communications are
very straightforward and explicit. What you say is what you mean and directions,
guidelines and expectations are clearly laid out. Clarity is primary. On the other hand
with high context, typical of Irish, you are looking at a much more implicit style of
communication. Things are open for interpretation or rather ambiguous, and based
heavily on the relationship and context of the people in conversation.
In my short time spent at House so far, I couldnt agree more. Only four days in
and I can gather immediately that my responsibilities and role as their intern is very
ambiguous and I am absolutely lacking instruction or deadlines to assignments. It is easy
to mistake this style for not caring or even aware of my presence, but that is not the case.
The task is still expected to be complete, done well, and completed a timely manner. The
manner in which I am instructed to do so is just simply different than what I am used to,
having timelines and rubrics drilled into our heads from an early age.
It is a challenge to set aside my anxiety and desire for step-by-step instructions
but I am motivated to strengthen those skills, knowing I will leave my internship and
Ireland in general a stronger, more well rounded individual, capable of figuring things out
on my own. Soon enough I hope to be able to understand more fluently the hidden
language of high context communications, catching all the innuendos, and confidently
joining conversations to add value of my own.

Deane, Barbara R. "A Model for Personal Change: Developing Intercultural Sensitivity."
Cultural Diversity at Work Journal 3.5 (1991): 1. DiversityCentral.com. Web. 16
Sept. 2015. <https://www.caee.org/sites/default/files/A%20Model%20for
%20Personal%20Change_0.pdf>.
(Deardorff 2006) Canvas slide show file:///Users/emilyconnor/Downloads/intercultural
%20competence.%20Deardorff%20(1)-1.pdf