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COMM-B540

Multicultural discourses

academic year
2024-2025

Course teacher(s)

Laura Marina CALABRESE (Coordinator)

ECTS credits

5

Language(s) of instruction

english

Course content

1) The nature of social concepts
2) The concept of race
3) The concept of culture
4) The evolution of identity

5) Defining multiculturalism
6) Managing cultural diversity
7) Focus on France and Belgium
8) Rise and fall of multiculturalism

9) The fragmentation of social discourse
10) Freedom of speech

11) The lexicon of antiracism

Objectives (and/or specific learning outcomes)

Learning objectives:

After attending the course lectures, reading the papers and taking part in the discussions, the students should be able to:

1) Map current controversies about diversity
2) Relate social discourse about diversity with the local context, management policies and history of the country
3) Understand the rationale of intercultural problems and how they are shaped by social discourse

Learning outcomes:

After attending the course lectures and reading the papers, the students will be able to:

1) Identify current controversies around multicultural issues
2) Apply the main concepts seen in class to current controversies

Prerequisites and Corequisites

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

A B1 level in English is required to follow the course.

Teaching methods and learning activities

Flipped classroom: students must read the assigned material beforehand in order to participate in the collective discussion. Each lesson includes one hour of lecture followed by a structured activity around the material on the Virtual University.
 

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

On the Virtual University

Course notes

  • Université virtuelle

Other information

Contacts

Laura.Calabrese@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Evaluation

Method(s) of evaluation

  • written examination
  • Oral presentation

written examination

Oral presentation

The final exam is largely based on discussions held in class, hence attendance at all sessions is mandatory (you can only miss a lesson if you have a medical certificate). Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each lesson. You will be asked to read the material in advance to be able to participate in the discussions in class.

Evaluation is ongoing and includes a variety of tasks. The final grade (/100) will be calculated as follows:

Final exam: 60% (in English or in French)
–Slides
–Articles
–Discussion in class
Recorded presentation: 40% (in English)
–2 minutes presentation (oral power point or video + images/text)
–Pick an incident that exemplifies the topics seen in class
–Deadline: 16 December
–You can contact the English teacher for feedback (Nell.Foster@ulb.be)

Students in Corporate Communication who can not attend the course because they are doing an internship will have a different final exam. They still have to hand in the oral presentation.

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

Final exam: 60%
Recorded presentation: 40% (in English)
Please note that you need to receive at least 50% on both activities to pass the course.

Language(s) of evaluation

  • english

Programmes