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As with other evolving fields within the realms of science the ontological assumptions and epistemological aspirations of intercultural communication studies are matters of debate and disagreement. Differently put, the very point of take-off from which studies in this field are conducted is seldom scrutinized. This being said, this paper identifies and discusses a number of blindspots and biases of intercultural communication studies – e.g. the reluctance or inability to account for analytical ethnocentrism ('home blindness'), heterocentrism (the unreflected and disproportionate focus on difference) or xenocentrism (the unreflected and disproportionate focus on 'the other'). Additionally, normativism (the unreflected assumption that intercultural communication has desirable effects on people's prejudices), cultural relativism versus absolutism, and particularism versus universalism are discussed. It is concluded that if the blindspots and biases of intercultural communication studies are overlooked, and thus the researcher is held as a cultural constant, the understanding of intercultural communication as interaction between two unavoidably and equally cultural interlocutors is deficient. Inspired by classical hermeneutics and discourse analysis it is therefore argued that intercultural communication studies researchers must declare their ontological assumptions and epistemological aspirations more actively and systematically.

Drawing from micro-sociology and the psychology and sociology of sport, and using a qualitative interview design, this study explores career retirement, role exit and related identity issues among eight Swedish ex-professional tennis players. Several questions are addressed. What were the characteristics of the professional tennis player role and of the retirement process? How did the ex-players cope with role-exit and what does their life look like today? What implications have the professional tennis player role and the retirement process had for their construction of identity? Results indicate that a `role restricted' socialization, intense media exposure, an overemphasis on performance and competition, in conjunction with how people confuse the interviewees' role with their identity, brought about what can be referred to as `role-identity fusion'. By analysing career termination along four, overlapping, phases it is clear that each phase urged the interviewees to make career and life choices, with a variety of identity implications. It is concluded that career retirement was a gradual, transitional process of psychological and social adaptation and quest for self-identity. As such it was challenging for the players, but not as dramatic as much scientific literature suggests.

This article assumes that the internationalization of higher education demands more elaborate pedagogical approaches to utilise the experiences of multiethnic student groups and to facilitate every student's acquisition of intercultural competencies. Drawing from three internationalisation ideologies embedded in the educational discourse, it is argued that intercultural communication – as a field of study or a discipline – can play a key role in this endeavour. Twelve fields of consideration, when international educators work with students, are also identified.

In the last century Swedish society has become increasingly globalized and multicultural. Today about 20 per cent of the country's population of 9 million people is of foreign decent. Recently questions of immigration, integration policies and multiculturalism have received much political attention. This fact, in the unmerciful light of a deconstruction of the welfare state coming to terms with these issues, constitutes an enormous challenge to the public sector as a whole. And for single social workers this requires somewhat new sorts of professional competencies – where intercultural competencies appear among the most important.Drawing from the inherent paradoxes and cultural dimensions of social work, the article singles out and discusses several qualities of intercultural competencies that seem useful for social workers. These are referred to as content-competencies and process-competencies. It is concluded that intercultural competencies are preconditions for successful social work in the future.

Drawing on a preschool digitalization project, this article presents the findings from a survey of 75 Swedish preschool heads. One main question guided the survey: how do Swedish preschool heads describe the use and usefulness of digital tools for interaction with parents? These findings are discussed in regard to intercultural differences, intercultural communication competence, and discursive blind spots, where two additional questions are addressed: (1) what preunderstandings and discursive blind spots are found in preschool heads' accounts of the use of digital tools for preschool staff–parent communication, and (2) what implications does the use of digital technology have for (intercultural) communication? Findings from the survey show that preschool heads take little consideration of their own or the parents' cultural background when understanding and promoting the use of digital tools. The conclusion is that overrelience on digital communication may increase the risk of miscommunication – for all Swedes but particularly with regard to communication between native and "new" Swedes.

Recently there has been much debate as to which foods Swedish preschools should serve. This text explores preschool teachers' approaches to parents' dietary requests. The empirical material consists of 14 focus group interviews with 41 preschool teachers from two areas of Stockholm. Results suggest that cultural and religious differences pertaining to food and diet requests lead to dilemmas and conflicts which are handled with instrumental multicultural or conscious multicultural approaches, whereas intercultural or transcultural approaches are rare. Among the preschool teachers in this study, this leads to avoidance strategies or efforts to change the parents' views. Results show that the preschool curriculum provides little guidance and preschool teachers must develop their own strategies to deal with children's and parents' expectations and demands, often using the children as intermediaries.

Religions can facilitate cohesion, belonging and feelings of safety or can underpin tensions, separatism or terrorism. This has led local, national and international policymakers to use inter-religious councils to overcome local conflicts by facilitating dialogue. Sweden has a growing number of inter-religious councils around the country. This article focuses on the inter-religious council in Midtown. The aim is (1) to describe how politicians, civil servants and religious leaders as participants in the council express their expectations on the Midtown inter-religious council, and (2) to analyse these accounts in the light of ongoing research and European examples of inter-religious dialogue. Data have been collected via interviews and participant observation, and analysed through two critical lenses, one focusing on social cohesion, the other on fears of militant religious extremism. Results show that members of the Midtown council view religions as constituting possible obstacles but mainly as an important asset in a process of developing a cohesive society.

In its political ambitions and pedagogical spirit to address an increasingly diverse population, the Swedish national curriculum for the preschool contains contradictory or even conflicting goals. On the one hand, the curriculum stipulates openness to, tolerance for and appreciation of cultural, ethnic, religious and social differences, and respect for the unique background of children. On the other hand, it stresses universal human rights and the fundamental values of Swedish society. How preschool teachers work with and make sense of such contradictory or even conflicting goals in everyday practice is the focus of this text. The research questions are: (1) How do preschool teachers describe the challenges they face in their daily work when they attempt to honour the stipulations of the curriculum? (2) Which strategies do they describe as using to manage these challenges? The empirical material consists of 14 focus group interviews with 41 preschool teachers from two highly ethnically and culturally diverse urban areas of metropolitan Stockholm. Results suggest that there are a number of recurring preschool situations where cultural and religious differences lead to dilemmas and potential friction between children, preschool teachers and parents. Results also show that the preschool curriculum provides little guidance and instead the preschool teachers must develop their own strategies to handle children's and parents' expectations and demands, for instance by using the children as cultural intermediaries. Overall, the preschool teachers adopt strategies that enable them to avoid "difficult" situations, which in effect risks placing the challenges on the shoulders of the children.

Europe 2020, the European Union's ten-year growth strategy, aims at delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. The strategy sets targets in the areas of employment, research and development, climate change, education and poverty, and social exclusion for the coming decade. It is within this context that the Horizon 2020 scheme highlights impact, co-creation, and quadruple helix cooperation vehicles for innovation and in response to societal challenges. It is also here that the knowledge and research results of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) play a crucial role. At the same time, definitions and understanding of such concepts are ambiguous if not even contradictory, which makes it difficult to determine their applicability and effectiveness. This being said, there is a need for clearer definitions and viable and measurable valorisation processes to determine the value and outcomes of such processes. By the same token, there is a need to move beyond concepts and models into the actual work with these matters: to talk to the people from academia, government, industry and societal partners about their experiences with co-creation and the considerations these experiences have involved and the lessons that have been learned. To move beyond traditional and linear valorisation approaches (i.e. from academia to society), it is frequently claimed that quadruple helix actors need to be committed to and actively engaged in co-creation. Yet, due to its being boundary transgressive, co-creation is multifaceted and seldom naturally occurring. Also, collaboration and co-creation are often obstructed by differences in organisational culture, organisational logics and ideological disagreement among the actors involved. For all the reasons above, the ACCOMPLISSH consortium, made up of 14 universities from 12 countries (representing a range of SSH sub-disciplines), is engaged with a variety of quadruple helix partners from government, industry and society. ; ACCOMPLISSH

Focus of this article is communicative challenges in multinational project work as well as how such challenges can be managed. By analyzing their communication in so called reflective dialogues and email correspondence the discussion sheds light upon how the participants of one such project talk about the meaning and pedagogical fruitfulness of horizontal classroom dialogue, and the degree to which they themselves actually communicate in a horizontal fashion within the project group.Drawing upon the discourse on classroom communication and intercultural communication data was subject to a qualitative analysis. Among other things, different aspects of horizontality in the dialogues were discerned but no significant differences in terms of indexicality were found. It was also shown that variations in the degree of horizontality-verticality in the dialogues and email correspondence may originate in different views on gender, project management and relationships between colleagues.Moreover, it was shown how reflective dialogues can be a useful tool for arriving at a common conceptual framework within a crossnational collaborative project. This said, the results can presumably be transferred to multicultural, and monocultural classrooms, to teacher teams analyzing problematic (or successful!) learning situations before 'taking measures', or in order to raise teachers' intercultural awareness.