title: Gender, religion, and sociopolitical issues in cross-cultural online education.
abstract: Cross-cultural education is thought to develop critical consciousness of how unequal distributions of power and privilege affect people's health. Learners in different sociopolitical settings can join together in developing critical consciousness-awareness of power and privilege dynamics in society-by means of communication technology. The aim of this research was to define strengths and limitations of existing cross-cultural discussions in generating critical consciousness. The setting was the FAIMER international fellowship program for mid-career interdisciplinary health faculty, whose goal is to foster global advancement of health professions education. Fellows take part in participant-led, online, written, task-focused discussions on topics like professionalism, community health, and leadership. We reflexively identified text that brought sociopolitical topics into the online environment during the years 2011 and 2012 and used a discourse analysis toolset to make our content analysis relevant to critical consciousness. While references to participants' cultures and backgrounds were infrequent, narratives of political-, gender-, religion-, and other culture-related topics did emerge. When participants gave accounts of their experiences and exchanged cross-cultural stories, they were more likely to develop ad hoc networks to support one another in facing those issues than explore issues relating to the development of critical consciousness. We suggest that cross-cultural discussions need to be facilitated actively to transform learners' frames of reference, create critical consciousness, and develop cultural competence. Further research is needed into how to provide a safe environment for such learning and provide faculty development for the skills needed to facilitate these exchanges.
authors: Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Florida, PO Box 100277, Gainesville, FL, 32610-0277, USA. Zareen.zaidi@medicine.ufl.edu.
authors: Zareen
authors: Z
authors: Zaidi
authors: Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors: Daniëlle
authors: D
authors: Verstegen
authors: University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors: Rahat
authors: R
authors: Naqvi
authors: FAIMER Institute, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors: Page
authors: P
authors: Morahan
authors: Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors: Tim
authors: T
authors: Dornan
mesh_terms: D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D020375:Education, Distance / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005178:Faculty / Q000193:education; D005257:Fellowships and Scholarships; D006281:Health Occupations / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007857:Leadership; D011057:Politics; D000068616:Professionalism / Q000193:education; D011634:Public Health / Q000193:education; D012067:Religion; D012737:Sex Factors; D063507:Sexism; D013192:Staff Development / Q000458:organization & administration; D023481:Terrorism
keywords: Critical consciousness; Cross-cultural communication; Hegemony; Power