An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community

Filled with thought-provoking examples, photos, quotes, cases, and stories that spark students’ interest and challenge them to reconsider existing viewpoints, the Seventh Edition of An Introduction to Intercultural Communication prepares today’s readers to successfully navigate our increasingly global community.

Using a historical framework that places current topics in context, author Fred E. Jandt integrates media as a variable in advancing issues and ideas, offers a full chapter on women and family, and retains his non-biased presentation of all cultures and ethnic groups. Extremely relevant, this Seventh Edition includes a new focus on social media as well as new challenges evident in ethnic and religious conflict, the role of women, and technology.

New to this edition:

• coverage of social media is integrated throughout
• global examples pulled from international events
• Mary Louise Pratt’s material on 'contact zone' between cultures is woven throughout.

 Key features:

• 'Focus on Theory' boxes ground the practical material in communication and social theory
• 'Focus on Culture' boxes help students understand cultural norms and practices
• 'Global Voices' feature uses brief, provocative quotes to introduce students to a diverse range of perspectives
• new and expanded photo essays
• coverage of immigration expanded to reflect current developments, including in-country migration in China.

Fred E. Jandt was born of second-generation German immigrants in the multicultural south-central region of Texas. After graduating from Texas Lutheran University and Stephen F. Austin State University, he received his doctorate in communication from Bowling Green State University. He has taught and been a student of intercultural communication for more than 40 years, developing his experience through travel and international training and research projects. While Professor of Communication at The College at Brockport, State University of New York, his reputation as a teacher led to his appointment as SUNY’s first director of faculty development. He has retired as Dean of the Palm Desert Campus and Professor of Communication at California State University, San Bernardino, where he was named Outstanding Professor. He has also been a visiting professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He has extensive experience in the areas of intercultural and international communication, negotiation mediation, and conflict management. He was one of the first scholars to introduce the study of conflict to the communication discipline with his text Conflict Resolution Through Communication (Harper & Row, 1973). He has subsequently published many other titles in this area, including the successful trade books Win-Win Negotiating: Turning Conflict Into Agreement (Wiley, 1985), which has been translated into eight languages, and a casebook on international conflict management, Constructive Conflict Management: Asia-Pacific Cases (SAGE, 1996) with Paul B. Pedersen. For several years, he conducted the training workshop “Managing Conflict Productively” for major corporations and government agencies throughout the United States. Jandt continues to train volunteers who are learning to become mediators in the California justice system.