Intercultural opening

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Under Intercultural opening a strategy is organizational development understood that should respond appropriately to the cultural diversity of society. Organizations with different tasks and fields of action are affected , the corresponding strategies extend to organizational and personnel development as well as measures for product and service development.

  • Public administration
  • social services
  • Health sector
  • School, college
  • Cultural institutions
  • media
  • Political organizations and interest groups.

Goal setting

An organization should be designed with its structures, its processes, its operational practice, its products and services in such a way that it meets the needs and the different needs of all those involved. Mechanisms that lead to the exclusion of a participant or represent access barriers to the respective organization should be dismantled. The intercultural opening relates to the customers or users of an organization, such as B. clients, patients, recipients of transfer payments, students and apprentices, visitors or subscribers. It also relates to the employees of an organization, regardless of gender or cultural origin. It should give all members of a society equal access to goods and services.

According to Hubertus Schröer, the objective of intercultural opening is thus differentiated from that of diversity management , even if target groups and measures are comparable. However, according to Schröer, the latter is primarily used in the corporate context and uses diversity as a "means to an end" for better market positioning; while with intercultural opening, diversity is the purpose itself.

Social framework

The demand for intercultural opening can apply as a consequence of labor migration and immigration . Due to the permanent settlement of various immigrant groups, the number of people with a migration background in the Federal Republic of Germany is growing steadily. In 2013 the proportion was already around 20 percent of the total population. Multiculturalism has become a fact. As a result, social organizations have to take into account the various interests and situations. The legal basis is provided by the prohibition of discrimination, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union from 2000, the General Equal Treatment Act of the Federal Republic of Germany from 2006 and at state level e.g. For example, in the federal state of Berlin in 2010 the “Law on the Regulation of Participation and Integration in Berlin”.

history

In the mid-1990s the term "intercultural opening" appeared in the language used by social work institutions. Hinz-Rommel (1995) opened a debate about the ethical-moral and socio-political responsibility towards people of non-German origin with his “Recommendations for the intercultural opening of social services”. In this context, it has been found that access to social resources in society differs between the indigenous population and the migrant population; This means that the group of immigrants is disadvantaged. This inequality should be eliminated by, above all, removing barriers to access to the institutions. As a result, considerable efforts were made to redesign the social work offers in a culture-specific and sensitive manner.

Procedures and instruments

Corresponding measures and initiatives have now also found their way into other areas of society, such as B. in schools and training, in health care, in the cultural sector, in authorities and administrative service providers. This includes the qualification of employees who develop and train their skills in dealing with people from other cultures. An "intercultural model" of the organization should be developed, which is binding on all levels of an organization. By means of a needs analysis , the specific needs of culturally different user groups are ascertained in order to be able to adapt and expand the offers of products or services. Another initiative is the targeted recruitment of personnel with a migrant background.

Current status

More and more institutions, facilities, organizations, etc. are using such procedures and instruments of intercultural opening in order to break down culture-related mechanisms of exclusion, disadvantageous structures and behavioral patterns as well as culture-related inhibitions. This relates to, among other things

  • Barriers to the use of social and communal services and benefits, etc. a. lack of information, fear of possible sanctions when using social services, bad experiences with institutions or their employees, lack of respect, doubts about the empathy of the other person;
  • unequal distribution of school qualifications and fewer chances of access to secondary schools, among other things due to a lack of knowledge of German, inadequate or incorrect information from parents, different learning habits;
  • Discrimination against young people with a migration background who apply for an apprenticeship position and are rejected by the HR departments for the same reason or because of their inadequate qualifications;
  • Imbalances in the use of medical care, nursing and preventive care due to culturally and linguistically determined access barriers; cultural misunderstandings due to different ideas about health and illness.
  • The different intensive use of libraries, theater performances, concerts, museums, insufficient consideration of migrant-specific topics in the press, television, radio.

Kenan Engin identifies the education sector as the most important area of ​​action, against the background that more than a quarter of the participants have a migration background, but only 7% of the educationally active persons in the formal education system have a migration background. That is why the biggest construction site of intercultural opening seems to be in the education sector.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hubertus Schröer: Intercultural opening and diversity management . In: Beate Blank, Süleyman Gögercin, Karin E. Sauer, Barbara Schramkowski (eds.): Social work in the migration society : Basics - Concepts - Fields of action . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-19539-7 , pp. 773-785 ( springer.com ).
  2. ↑ Hubertus Schröer: Intercultural opening and diversity management: A comparison of the strategies . 2018, p. 7 .
  3. ↑ Kenan Engin: The development of intercultural opening from (inter) national perspective. In: Migration and Social Work. Issue 1, Frankfurt am Main 2015, pp. 89–94.

literature

  • Christiane Griese, Helga Marburger: Intercultural opening . A textbook. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2012.
  • S. Handschuck, H. Schröer: Intercultural orientation and opening of organizations. Strategic approaches and examples of implementation. 2012 (PDF ; 78 kB, accessed on April 13, 2012).
  • H. Schröer: Intercultural Orientation and Opening: A New Paradigm for Social Work. In: Archives for Science and Practice of Social Work. Issue 1, 2007, pp. 80-91.
  • W. Hinz-Rommel: Recommendations for the intercultural opening of social services. In: K. Barwig, W. Hinz-Rommel (ed.): Intercultural opening of social services. Lambertus, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995, pp. 129-147.