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M. BENNETT’S MODEL OF FOREIGN CULTURE
Beknazar SINDAROV
Xalqaro jurnalistika fakulteti
Madaniyatlararo kommunikatsiyaning
lingivistik ta ’minoti yo ’nalishi
talabasi
Abstract
. The article describes the development of a person's attitude towards
other cultures through six linear stages (three ethnocentric (exclusive) stages: Denial,
Defence, and Minimisation—in which a person's own culture is the measure of all
things, and three ethnorelative (inclusive) stages: Acceptance, Adaptation, and
Integration—in which a person understands and values other cultural points of view as
equal to his or her own.
Key words
: sensitivity, Bennet Scale, ethnocentric stages.
The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) created by Milton
J. Bennett is a grounded theory based on constructivist perception and communication
theory. It assumes that the experience of reality is constructed through perception, and
that more complex perceptual categories yield more complex (sophisticated)
experience. Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, a framework that is used
internationally to guide the design and assessment of training programs in intercultural
communication and competence. Bennett is an adjunct professor of intercultural studies
at the University of Milano Bicocca in Italy, and he was formerly a tenured professor
at Portland State University, where he created the institution’s graduate program in
intercultural communication. He is the author of Basic Concepts of Intercultural
Communication: Paradigms, Principles, and Practices, co-editor and contributor to The
Handbook of Intercultural Training, and co-author, with Edward Stewart, of the revised
edition of American Cultural Patterns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Bennett is also a
reviewer for the International Journal of Intercultural Relations and Journal of
Intercultural Education, and the author of many articles on intercultural research and
practical
Since the 1960s, concerns about equity and diversity have mostly been associated
with the encouragement and enforcement of civil rights—in other words, they’ve been
political and legal issues. More recently, a lot of attention has also been given to
prejudice-reduction and its extensions, such as implicit bias or microaggressions. I’ve
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been working with a less well-known approach to equity and diversity that also began
in the 60s intercultural communication.
Intercultural communication is concerned with how we can understand and be
respectful of differences in worldview, by which I mean the different ways we perceive
and experience the world. People tend to think of this idea in terms of national cultures
like French or Japanese, but it is equally applicable to cultural groups that are defined
by ethnicity—which may or may not be associated with socalled “racial” differences—
and gender, social status, age, ability, sexual orientation, or other group criteria.
This illustration of Milton Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural
Sensitivity (here in after referred to as DMIS), or the “Bennett Scale,” describes the
standard ways in which people experience, interpret, and interact across cultural
difference.
Milton Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, sometimes
called the “Bennett Scale” describes the common ways in which people experience,
interpret, and interact across cultural difference. Presented as a developmental
continuum that progresses from ethnocentric (denial, defensiveness, and minimization)
to ethnorelative worldviews (acceptance, adaptation, and integration), the model has
been widely used as an educational tool to help people progress toward a deeper
understanding of cross-cultural difference. Image republished with permission from the
Intercultural Development Research Institute.
The DMIS is built on the observation that our perception of cultural “otherness”
is also a skill that has to be learned. All of us are born into the default condition of
ethnocentrism, where we see our own group as natural and complex and other groups
as unnatural and simple. At the beginning of the continuum of development—the stage
I call Denial—people do not discern cultural otherness at all; they may have a vague
sense that something is different, but it’s not something that is worthy of their conscious
notice.
When interacting with people at the Denial stage, members of other groups may
feel as if they are invisible—at least in terms of their distinctive cultural attributes, but
possibly even as human beings. People who are socially and culturally isolated, whether
it is through circumstance or choice, may not be motivated to move beyond Denial.
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Consequently, they may seem to be willfully ignorant of equality or inclusion issues
that seem obvious to people with more experience and a greater understanding of
cultural differences. People at the Denial stage genuinely just do not get it. Movement
along the continuum occurs when we need to interact with members of other cultural
groups in more sophisticated ways. First, Denial gives way to Defense, where people
start to see and discriminate cultural otherness, but only in fairly simplistic and
stereotypical ways. At this point, people recognize obvious issues associated with
otherness such as immigration and segregation, but they tend to approach the issues in
polarized “us and them” ways. Usually, it is “us” better and “them” worse—the well-
worn path of populism and nationalism.
But sometimes that’s reversed and people experience others as better—for
instance, people from non-dominant groups who have internalized racist or sexist
beliefs about themselves or expatriates who have “gone native.” In addition to
describing the obvious cases of oppressed people aiding their oppressors, this form of
Defense, which I call Reversal, may masquerade as a more sensitive position than it is.
For example, dominant-culture members who take on the causes of nondominant
groups while fiercely criticizing their own ethnicity may not be more interculturally
sensitive; they may just have changed sides.
Bennet also mention that the DMIS is generally used for three primary
applications. One application is the diagnosis of individuals or collections of
individuals for the purpose of targeting interventions, such as coaching or training. So,
for instance, an individual whose predominant stage of development is Minimization
could begin work on cultural self-awareness and perceptual strategies for recognizing
relevant cultural differences. It would be too soon to do that work with people at
Defense or Denial because they have not humanized otherness sufficiently to avoid
stereotyping. Or if a person showed more Acceptance, the work would focus more on
developing the skills of empathy and behavioral flexibility.
A second application of the DMIS is for program-effectiveness evaluation. By
using fairly simple pre- and post-testing, it’s possible to show that a particular program
was more or less effective in causing changes in intercultural sensitivity. The third
application is program design. By sequencing material and activities appropriately,
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participants can be supported and challenged in ways that are both motivational and
non-threatening. For example, DMIS-guided programs are often used to build the
capacity of teachers, social workers, medical personnel, and others who work with
multicultural communities and who need to create a climate of respect for diversity.
Internationally, study abroad and exchange programs use the DMIS a lot to guide pre-
departure, on-site, and re-entry intercultural learning. And corporations also use the
DMIS to build and assess intercultural competence in their global operations.
The DMIS can help people address problems such as prejudice and discrimination,
of course, but it doesn’t frame diversity or anti-racism work in terms of civil rights or
political power, for example, or even in terms of individual or social psychology. Can
you explain how the cultural, group-level framing of the DMIS is different from other
approaches, and how developmental approaches are distinct from what you call
“transformational” approaches.
The most ethnocentric construct, that is, rejection, has only vague categories of
"other" for people to perceive in different cultural contexts. At the other end of the
continuum, a more ethnorelative construction of integration suggests that complex
self/other categories are embedded in personal identity and ethical decision making in
multicultural relationships. This article describes the theory of DMIS and its application
to diagnosis and intervention, including some discussion of measuring cross-cultural
sensitivity and a key critique of the model and its measurement.
References
1.
Bennett, M. (1986). A developmental approach to training intercultural
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International Journal of Intercultural Relations.
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Bennett, M. (2013) Basic concepts of intercultural communication:
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