Reflect & Relate

Authors Steven McCornack and Kelly Morrison have partnered with our Editorial Board for diversity, inclusion, and culturally responsive-sustaining pedagogy to create an even more inclusive text that models for and guides students in culturally self-aware and inclusive communication. The Sixth Edition responds to the real and growing interpersonal challenges students currently face: how to form positive relationships to support health and wellness, within increasingly online contexts, and with people who have a variety of backgrounds, abilities, and experiences.

The Editorial Board's review focused on our coverage of culture and gender—in Chapter 5: Understanding Culture, Chapter 6: Understanding Gender, and throughout the book. The resulting revision includes the most current research, helping students to become competent and resilient intercultural communicators.

Reflect & Relate’s leading coverage of gender has also been further revised in the Sixth Edition. In addition to updating sections about gender in Chapter 6 and throughout the book, the authors have made the decision to use the singular gender-inclusive pronoun they throughout the book (see the text here, with a footnote that explains the pedagogical reasoning behind the decision).

New features and examples in all chapters are designed with gender inclusivity in mind (see also the Focus on Culture feature on the next slide).

For the Sixth Edition, the authors use the singular gender-inclusive pronoun they throughout the text. In Chapter 1, the authors include a footnote that explains the reasoning behind the decision (top). The new edition also includes a pedagogical feature on gender-inclusive language for the Focus on Culture in Chapter 8: Communicating Verbally (bottom). This feature describes two case studies, one from Sweden and the other from Pomona College, where gender-inclusive language has been adopted. Accompanying questions can be used for discussion or as writing prompts.

In addition to integrating intercultural communication throughout the text, Reflect & Relate includes a full chapter on culture. Chapter 5: Understanding Culture emphasizes the importance of embracing cultural difference to dismantle perceived distance. For the new edition, the authors worked with the Editorial Board and reviewer Liz Martin to expertly craft important revisions that hone and deepen the text’s commitment to diverse, equitable, inclusive, and culturally responsive and sustaining learning materials.

In addition to integrating intercultural communication throughout the text, Reflect & Relate includes a full chapter on culture. Chapter 5: Understanding Culture emphasizes the importance of embracing cultural difference to dismantle perceived distance. For the new edition, the authors worked with the Editorial Board and reviewer Liz Martin to expertly craft important revisions that hone and deepen the text’s commitment to diverse, equitable, inclusive, and culturally responsive and sustaining learning materials.

With the guidance of our Editorial Board, the authors have extensively updated this edition to both reflect current research on culture and also include important voices in understanding culture. In particular, the new edition includes revised coverage of intersectionality and now cites Kimberlé Crenshaw who coined and developed that term (see manuscript, right). Additionally, the Sixth Edition includes current research on prejudice and how people can avoid it in interpersonal communication. Other chapters discuss implicit bias and strategies for overcoming it (Chapter 2), microaggressions (Chapter 9), and more.

In a section on understanding culture in Chapter 5, the text cites a statistic that more than 1 million international students enroll in the US annually. The previous edition included the line that “your college classmates are just as likely to be from Singapore as from Seattle.” After including a diversity of voices to review this section, editor Will Stonefield reported back to the authors this line might be revised to better speak to international students themselves. The authors, grateful for the feedback, adopted the change for the Sixth Edition and revised the line to be more inclusive of international students so that it now reads: “You may be such a student yourself—or you may have classmates from various countries and from communities across the United States.” (final page, bottom) Small changes like these add up, signaling to international students that they belong in this course, and that this text is written for them as much as anyone else. This work is a direct product of principle #1 in action: diverse voices in an inclusive development process.

Reflect & Relate emphasizes development of skills that students then apply to challenging communication situations. One example is the coverage of empathy in Chapter 3, which explains that empathy is not innate but is a skill that is learned through practice and application. The concept of empathy mindset supports this framing.

The Editorial Board guided our authors and editor in choosing images in this section (pictured here), and throughout the entire book, to ensure that examples and content reflect the perspectives and experiences of all students who will use Reflect & Relate.

We are deeply grateful for the insights gifted to us and this text by the members of the Board. Their time, energy, and efforts have resulted in a book expressing not just two voices and perspectives, but a broad and richly diverse plurality.