About this activity

People live in different social and cultural worlds - or circles. 

In each of these circles you are likely to have intercultural encounters as you meet people who are different from yourself in some significant way (for example ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, lifestyle, profession and family roles). Cultural difference may be more obvious when you travel to far off countries and meet the people who live there. However, significant differences can also be found in the most intimate circles: parents may feel, for example, that their teenage children inhabit different circles from their own!

This activity is an opportunity to reflect on intercultural encounters in different circles and to consider the positive, negative and other significant aspects of one such encounter.

© Knut Skjærven

Key words

  • circles of encounter
  • interpersonal
  • institutional
  • local
  • global