Study in Germany, Study in Vietnam - a Comparison of Two Cultures

The project work in this module takes place in mixed teams, i.e. in each team there are participants from both universities. In addition to the disciplines in which the students are trained, the study prerequisites and contents differ. Thus, the module is less on professional than on cultural skills and to raise awareness of the problems of each other. The cross-national study is conducted in team work focusing on a comparison of both countries. After introduction to the module and the method of cross-national comparisons (case-based literature review, comprehensive analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data), the teams can choose to specialize within either one of the following topics or suggest a topic of their own:

•  Study system
• Social welfare
• Urbanization
• Ancient or current culture
• Language and communication
• Family life
• Industrialization
•  Globalization
• Environmental issues

• Prof. Dr. Christina Andersson, Fb 2
• Prof. Dr. Tine Köhler, Fb 1
• Dr. Sebhatleab Tewolde Kelati, Fb 4

Project work (time given: 8 weeks) with presentation.

Students broaden their specialized line of thinking (theories and methods) through insights into professional knowledge and paradigms of other disciplines. The students are capable of:

• interdisciplinary thinking, and recognizing the different aspects of a cross-sectional task, weighing these aspects and reflecting on them holistically;
•  comprehending the relations within their future professional fields with regard to different disciplines as well as societal aspects;
• describing these relations professionally as well as representing them argumentatively in debate;
• reflecting the impacts and effects of their professional and societal actions and drawing conclusions from these for their own conduct;
•  developing an understanding for how other disciplines think through interdisciplinary tasks, and acting cooperatively with regard to other cultures and value systems;
• comparing for agenda setting and negotiation processes in different cultural landscapes and realizing what are the crucial differences between the countries.

• Intercultural Communication in Contexts (5th Edition) by Judith Martin, Thomas Nakayama (2009)
• Understanding intercultural communication bv Ting-Toomey, Stella, Chung, Leeva C (2012)
• Intercultural Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication (Research and Practice in Applied Linguistics) by Helen Spencer-Oatey, Peter Franklin (2009)
• Cultures and Organizations: Software for the Mind, Third Edition by Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov (2010)