Welcome to Worldmates

An educational program to build active open-mindedness through a cross-cultural exchange

The mission

At work, at home and in the community, people will need a broad understanding of how others live, in different cultures and traditions, and how others think, whether as scientists or as artists. The foundations for this don’t all come naturally. We are all born with “bonding social capital”, a sense of belonging to our family or other people with shared experiences, achievements or goals. But it requires deliberate and continuous efforts to create the kind of “bridging social capital” through which we can share understandings, ideas and innovation, and increase our radius of trust to strangers and institutions.

The project

The willingness and capacity to see the world through different lenses, to appreciate different ways of thinking and recognize the richness of different cultures is key in the interconnected world of our century. A true understanding of each other, at a personal and individual level is essential for the dismantlement of stereotypes that tend to create barriers between cultures.
The Worldmates program creates a time and space of exchange between students in different countries to promote social perspective-taking, cognitive empathy and active open-mindedness in the context of a cross-cultural learnign experience.

The program targets three constructs

Active open-mindedness

"The willingness to actively seek out evidence that contradicts one's existing beliefs, and to fairly consider and weigh this evidence."

Perspective taking

"The capacity to make sense of others’ thoughts and feelings."

Gehlbach. H. (2017). Learning to walk in another's shoes. Phi Delta Kappan, 98(6), 8–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721717696471

Cognitive empathy

"The ability to understand another person’s predicament as they understand it."

Small, M. (2018, March 1) Rhetoric and evidence in a polarized society. Coming to terms with a polarized society lecture series, ISERP, Columbia University. (public lecture)

Critical thinking

Students develop critical thinking skills to understand the mechanisms behind the formation and actualization of stereotypes.

Communication

Students lead conversations in a space filled with empathy and psychological safety. They are brought to develop and exercise non-judgmental listening.

Collaboration

Students connect online to learn about their respective life story, culture and customs. They present facets of their daily life and highlight the aspects they found in common.

Creativity

Students conduct a final project based on their preferred learning and creation style (video, writing, podcase, dance, artwork). The project reflects the learning journey and evolution of understanding across cultures with an attention to the individual backgrounds, interests, motivators.

The program is built following the four dimensions of 21st Century skills targeting: