Intercultural Understanding Option
In the Option in Intercultural Understanding students learn skills highly valued in the global marketplace: respect for cultural difference, tolerance for ambiguity, and critical self-reflection. The option brings awareness to the role of culture in shaping people's worldview and practices, fosters a complex understanding of one's own social location, and provides training in holistic analysis. In a multicultural society such as Canada, understanding diversity helps dispel dominant stereotypes about non-normative cultures, encouraging respectful collaboration and teamwork. The option's emphasis on ethnographic skills affords students practical, transferable research tools that are attractive to employers.
To obtain an Intercultural Understanding Option designation on a transcript, students must have a minimum GPA of 7.00 in designated courses (core and electives), computed on all credits for the option.
The option consists of a minimum of 4.0 credits.
Students must complete 2.0 core credits:
AN100 - Cultures Today;
AN200 - Theories of Culture;
AN210 - Intercultural Competencies; and
AN300 - Ethnographic Methods.
The option is completed by taking a further 2.0 credits from Elective courses (refer to the list below).
AN243 - Law, Culture and Society
AN342 - Africa at the Crossroads
AN461 - The Anthropology of the Body
EN211 - Roots, Race, Resistance: Post-Colonial Literature
EN252 - Multiculturalism and Literature
EN280 - Introduction to Indigenous Literatures
EN330 - Human Rights in Contemporary Cultural Forms
GG270 - Cultural Geographies
GG376 - Cultural Heritage Landscapes
GG370 - Geographies of Violence
GS357 - Gender and Sexualities in Global Context
GS421 - Ethical Encounters
">">GS422 - Dialogue and Critique in an Age of Terror
HI253 - Race, Rights and the Law in Early United States History
HI256 - Human Rights in World History
HI258 - Indigenous Peoples and Empires
HI322 - Social History of Modern Canada
HI325 - Imperial Fantasies: The Rise and Fall of the British empire
HI344 - Indigenous Eastern Canada: Peoples and Societies Under Colonialism
HI345 - Indigenous Western Canada: Peoples & Societies under Colonialism
NO211 - Canadian Identities and Cultures
NO230 - Decolonizing North America
PP223 - Contemporary Moral Issues
RE205 - Canadian Religious Controversies
RE301 - Muslims in Europe
RE331 - Religious Diversity in Contemporary Canada
- At least 3.0 of the required 4.0 credits in the option must be completed at Wilfrid Laurier University. For Anthropology majors, the elective courses must be outside the major.
- Completion of the option requirements will result in an "Intercultural Understanding Option" designation on student transcripts. The option is open to all honours students.