Identity text: an educational intervention to foster cultural interaction.
BACKGROUND
Sociocultural theories state that learning results from people participating in contexts where social interaction is facilitated. There is a need to create such facilitated pedagogical spaces where participants can share their ways of knowing and doing. The aim of this exploratory study was to introduce pedagogical space for sociocultural interaction using 'Identity Text'.


METHODS
Identity Texts are sociocultural artifacts produced by participants, which can be written, spoken, visual, musical, or multimodal. In 2013, participants of an international medical education fellowship program were asked to create their own Identity Texts to promote discussion about participants' cultural backgrounds. Thematic analysis was used to make the analysis relevant to studying the pedagogical utility of the intervention.


RESULTS
The Identity Text intervention created two spaces: a 'reflective space', which helped participants reflect on sensitive topics such as institutional environments, roles in interdisciplinary teams, and gender discrimination, and a 'narrative space', which allowed participants to tell powerful stories that provided cultural insights and challenged cultural hegemony; they described the conscious and subconscious transformation in identity that evolved secondary to struggles with local power dynamics and social demands involving the impact of family, peers, and country of origin.


CONCLUSIONS
While the impact of providing pedagogical space using Identity Text on cognitive engagement and enhanced learning requires further research, the findings of this study suggest that it is a useful pedagogical strategy to support cross-cultural education.
Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA; Zareen.zaidi@medicine.ufl.edu.
Zareen
Z
Zaidi
Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Daniëlle
D
Verstegen
Languages and Diversity, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Rahat
R
Naqvi
Department of Educational Development and Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Tim
T
Dornan
FAIMER Institute, Philadelphia, PA, USA.|Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Page
P
Morahan
D003469:Culture; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007858:Learning; D011057:Politics; D063507:Sexism; D012933:Social Identification; D012944:Social Support; D013663:Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration*
cross-cultural education; discourse analysis; educational cultural hegemony; pedagogical space; sociocultural theory