No Offence Meant

The incidents outlined in this scenario relate to all the different aspects of cultural awareness. From national culture through corporate culture to personal and professional.

The original spark for this was the ‘naming the teddy bear' incident in Sudan, when schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons became embroiled in an international incident when she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear ‘Mohammed', unaware of the offence that this was likely to cause in a Muslim country.

However, our research with employers and graduates has shown that cultural awareness or cultural sensitivity is crucial to most, if not all, graduate employment.

To help students in higher education to recognise and reflect on different aspects of 'culture' we have created low-tech easily used games and exercises to be played by groups of students in the classroom. There is also an external website resource which can be uploaded into any virtual learning environment. To help you plan your delivery you can download teaching notes based on our pilot lessons.