This book provides qualitative analyses of intercultural sense making in a variety of institutional contexts. It relies on the assumption that in an increasingly culturally diverse world, individuals often enter contexts that have communal, historically determined and stable sets of values, norms and expected identities, with little cultural compass to find their bearings in them. The book goes beyond interpreting differences in people's ethnic or linguistic roots and discusses instead people's interpretive efforts to navigate different sociocultural situations. The contributors examine such situations in educational, organizational, medical and community settings and look at how participants with different levels of sociocultural competences (such as, migrant patients, migrant adult learners, children) try to cope with institutional constraints and expectations, how they understand symbols, practices and identities in institutional contexts,and how their creative adjustments come to light.

This book provides insights from the fields of psychology, education, anthropology and linguistics, and is for a wide readership interested in cultural meaning-making.

Autorentext

Marilena Fatigante is Associate Professor in Social Psychology at Sapienza University, Rome, Italy. She is an expert in the study of social interaction in natural settings carried out by means of ethnography, recording, and transcription practices. Her research interests include the study of interaction in healthcare settings (particularly, oncology), ethics in the participant-researcher relationship, interaction in educational contexts. Her publications have been published in Social Science & Medicine, Written Communication, Sociology of Health and Illness, and focus on formulating treatment proposals, literacy practices during oncological visits, and uncertain scenarios in the oncology visits. Cristina Zucchermaglio is Full Professor of Social Psychology at Sapienza University, where she is Head of the Interaction & Culture Laboratory (LInC). She specializes in ethnography-based field studies of social interaction and organization of cognition in everyday settings, such as school, families, high-tech companies, sports teams, children's homes and hospitals. Her recent research articles on medical communication and reasoning have been published in the Journal of Cancer Education, Sociology of Health and Illness, Mind, Culture and Activity, Social Science & Medicine, Written Communication, and Patient Education and Counselling.

Francesca Alby is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at Sapienza University. She specializes in qualitative, ethnographically informed, studies of groups, communication, social interaction and action in workplaces and everyday settings. Her recent research focused on communication practices in healthcare settings and has been published in the Sociology of Health and Illness, Social Science & Medicine, Written Communication, and Patient Education and Counselling, Journal of Cancer Education.