World Council Annual Global Symposium x Transcultural Leadership Summit

The Futures of Transculturality - From Education to Leadership

What if we focus on developing commonalities across cultures? For many years, cultural differences have been at the centre of our attention - against this backdrop, this question is an offer to widen our perspectives and take the discussion in our field further. Transculturality with its focus on interconnections, flows, interdependencies, and permeations of cultures invites us to focus on a relational view of cultural complexity. 

A revisited concept of transculturality includes to consider individuums and organizations in their relations, referring to context-specific events, constructive processes and the connotation of the beyond, which implies the possibility, ability, and willingness to create developing commonalities while maintaining cultural diversity. In this respect, this is in line with the call for a constructivist and relational paradigm shift. 

A transcultural and relational approach to cultural complexity has multiple implications for education, management, and leadership. This is the motivation for the symposium that is organized by the World Council’s working group “Transcultural Cooperation and Leadership” in cooperation with the Transcultural Caravan Network. The Transcultural Caravan Network is an alliance of universities from different countries around the world that share the goal of facilitating international and interdisciplinary research projects and transcultural learning experiences for students and educators. The World Council and the Transcultural Caravan Network share the ambition to connect people from diverse backgrounds and develop formats for mutual exchange and learning. Together, we look forward to hosting this event.

Questions to ponder

Here are some of the questions we will discuss with you during our symposium: 

• What are the implications of a transcultural and relational approach to our field?
• How do we move beyond the recognition, acceptance and tolerance of cultural differences towards developing commonalities across cultures?
• What are the benefits and risks of focussing on the development of commonalities?  
• What does transcultural education look like?
• What are the best practices of transcultural education and what can we learn from it?
• If transculturality focuses on the development of commonalities, what role does leadership play?  

Save the date! 

The symposium will take place online on the 22nd of November (Friday) 2024 from 3 pm to 7 pm, CET. The event will include keynotes, workshops, networking, and a panel discussion.  We look forward to welcoming you and invite you to discuss the futures of transculturality from education to leadership. More information will follow soon. 

On Friday, November 22, 2024 the World Council’s Transcultural Working Group, co-coordinated by Julika Baumann Montecinos and Tobias Gruenfelder, is excited to organize the 2024 World Council Symposium with inspiring speakers and discussions on “Transculturality” in collaboration with the Transcultural Caravan.