ИСТИНА

‘Multicultural societies throw up problems that have no parallel in history. They need to find ways of reconciling the legitimate demands of unity and diversity, achieving political unity without cultural uniformity, being inclusive without being assimilationist, cultivating among their citizens a common sense of belonging while respecting their legitimate cultural differences, and cherishing plural cultural identities without weakening the shared and precious identity of shared citizenship’ (Parekh, 2005, p. 343). Nowadays, not only in daily life but also in professional life, more and more teams are becoming diverse and interaction with people who belong to different cultural groups has risen dramatically. Numerous researchers have concluded that, ‘ability to work in a multicultural ambience and valuing diversity’ is an important competence in a multicultural society and suggested developing this intercultural competence by means of educational initiatives (Gifford et al., 2008, p. 10). This presentation will put forward how Young SIETAR (YS) is associated with this type of educational initiative. In 2017, YS brought out the fifth edition of Training of Intercultural Trainers (TOIT), which is an example of such an educational initiative aiming to raise a new generation of young intercultural trainers able not only to value cultural diversity but also to commit themselves towards those core values which describe not only multiculturalism but also interculturalism. For the TOIT effectiveness study, a mixed methods approach was applied as it involved the collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data using two types of data collection instrument (surveys and Skype for qualitative research interviews). TOIT 2017 was aimed at newcomers to the intercultural field as well as experienced intercultural practitioners from all over the world. This presentation will analyse the results and the impact of TOIT on participants alongside discussion of further improvement.