Between cultures, sometimes also called cross-cultural which may have other added meanings. I am interested in the communication between people who come from different language and cultural backgrounds and are living now together in communities, cities etc. We all gravitate toward people who share our language and cultural traditions and customs. However, in today’s increasingly multilingual and multicultural societies, sharing and learning from each other is much more common.

I often think about how my grandparents came from a village or communities that were in the same country, maybe even just a few kilometers from each other. My parents met right after WWII in one and the same city. My dad had grown up in that city, whereas mom moved there to work as a young woman from another part of Finland. I, on the other hand, have ended up moving to the other side of the world, thousands of km away from my birthplace and country. Within three generations, members of our family have expanded their horizons as the world has changed in that time.

In Navigating the Intercultural Classroom book, I and the co-author talk about the impact that massive worldwide migration of people now has on our everyday lives. We focus on education and the ESOL classroom as teachers, but the mixing and meshing of languages and backgrounds take different forms and embrace numerous challenges everywhere else.