Intercultural Learning and Hybridity in the Culture Laboratory

The author demonstrates that the Culture Laboratory offered a solid background for developing intercultural learning and Preparatory Immigrant Training at the College. The suggestions the participants in the Culture Laboratory made opened up a hybrid learning space for intercultural development, and offered a good springboard from which new ideas could flourish. Learning in ‘a Paperland’, as the immigrant students called Finland, offered the participants both challenges and opportunities. Intercultural space in the Culture Laboratory was identified as a developmental and potential zone in which a hybrid process of observing, comparing, and creating took place. “The theme of this dissertation can claim highest attention: Immigration is one of the most thrilling political and social problems confronting the highly industrialized countries.” – Susanne Weber, Professor, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich