Power relations and change in intercultural communication education: Zhongyong as a complementary analytical framework

ABSTRACT Power relations and change have become two of the most important foci of intercultural communication education and research. This paper contributes to these two elements by problematising and operating an analytical framework from outside the ‘West’, the Chinese notion of Zhongyong (the ‘Golden Mean’). Based on a dialogical analysis of focus groups collected during an art course, the paper shows that Zhongyong can expand and complexify our understanding of interculturality, looking into how e.g. the students balance otherness with otherness (or not), as well as make use of reflectivity and criticality (or not) to implement potential change when cooperating.


Introduction
Since the early 2000s several calls have been voiced in the broad field of intercultural communication education and research concerning the very notion of interculturality.First a call for making sense of the prefix and suffix of 'inter-' and '-ity'beyond the aspect of 'culture'has been increasingly emphasised in global research, leading to putting discussions of power relations and change at the centre (Piller, 2017;Holliday et al., 2004;Dervin, 2016).As such inter-seems to hint at the processes of balancing otherness with otherness when people meet interculturally, thus dealing with (unequal) power relations (e.g.McConachy & Hinton, 2022), while -ity reminds us that these processes are never-ending, leading to necessary (often invisible) changes in us and the other (Moloney, 2022).Exploring further such aspects of interculturality to make it worthwhile is a necessity in times of crisis and emergency like ours (Holmes & Corbett, 2022).A second call has urged researchers and educators to explore alternative means of developing and stimulating intercultural dialogue in e.g.learners through the power of art (Dervin & Tian, 2023;Goncalves & Majhanovich, 2016).Finally, a notable and important call gradually heard in intercultural communication education and research has to do with the current strong push to be more epistemically inclusive and fair (Dervin & R'boul, 2022;R'boul, 2022;Zembylas, 2023), and to listen to and make use of other voices in the way the complex notion of interculturality is understood and worked upon in glocal contexts, beyond and in complement to 'Western' perspectives that have tended to dominate the broad field of interculturality.
With this paper, we contribute modestly to these three calls, following in the footsteps of e.g.An et al. (2022), Zhou (2022) or Huang (2023) who have explored ways of enriching intercultural communication education and research by bringing in concepts and analytical frameworks from outside the 'West'.In so doing we also listen to Deleuze and Guattari (1994), who maintain that new (lesser known) philosophical concepts can open new horizons for thought.As a genuinely global notion in academia and education, influenced by glocal multilingual and diverse epistemic and ideological perspectives, interculturality deserves to be constantly revisited and enhanced.Chinese thought serves as an example in what follows.Our study is based on a Chinese philosophical concept, the Confucian idea of Zhongyong 中庸 (translated for now as the Golden Mean), offering to build an analytical framework for global intercultural research with a focus on power relations and change.Multidisciplinary scholars inside and outside China, who consider e.g.Confucian ideas, values and ideals important to explore, have been undertaking the task of reconceptualising them in light of diverse views about the world and life, while attempting to apply these reconceptualised ideas to reduce the tension between tradition and modernisation, and to harmonise localisation and globalisation (Yao, 2017).
The intercultural context under review is special and goes beyond the 'intercultural as international' since the paper is based on data collected amongst groups of art students cooperating on a visual design project at a Minzu 'ethnic' university in China, whereby they were required to negotiate artistic creations based on one specific Minzu 'ethnic' artistic style.Our interest here is to explore how these students 'do' interculturality when they work together and focus on their broader intercultural learning while negotiating and engaging with diverse Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' art.Although the paper is not about art or art education as such, since our interest is in interculturality as a cooperative phenomenon discursively, we do recognise (and have written about) the contributions that art can make for interculturality epistemologically (see Dervin & Tian, 2023;Tian et al., 2023).To our knowledge, apart from our previous work, and especially Dervin and Yuan (2021), no other attempt has been made in China or globally to make sense of exchanges between Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' groups in terms of interculturality, using the Confucian notion of Zhongyong to do so.In this paper, we thus suggest a framework for how people perform, negotiate and co-construct interculturality, focusing on what they say about what they do together.Two questions are addressed using Zhongyong as an analytical framework: How do the students balance otherness with otherness (other students, their teacher-advisers, the Minzu 'ethnic' group in their visual design project) while cooperating together?What change is taking place between them and how do they deal with it in the process?

Zhongyong (中庸) as a proposal for examining interculturality in education
The Chinese concept of Zhongyong (中庸), is proposed as a companion for intercultural research in education.It should be noted at the outset that Zhongyong is not only systematically associated with Confucianism, but the very term Zhong is also a key concept in many Chinese schools of thought such as Daoism, the School of Logicians, and the Legalist school (Li, 2020, p. 1).The concept, which has been presented as one of the central themes of Confucian thought (Xu, 2015), comes from The Zhongyong (Ancient Chinese literature), said to have been authored by Zisi 子 思.Although Zhongyong is a key part of Chinese thought, it seems that many people misunderstand it, so that might lead them to misuse, abuse and overuse it (see below, the 'double' understanding of Zhongyong).In this sense, it is necessary to reconstruct the concept of Zhongyong, and to explore and provide a concrete and comprehensive understanding of it for both the 'West' and even for the 'East'.
We start with a few basic remarks about Zhongyong, which has and is widely used in-/directly in all aspects of governance, conduct and life in China.As such, Zhongyong has to do with interpersonal communication and is considered as a method for interacting and negotiating with others (Tian, 2022).We note that e.g.Confucianism places an important stress on the self's contribution to community life, especially in adopting equality as a core principle for dealing with others, humans and non-humans (Yao, 2017), pushing forth an equal, just, fair and liberal governance system, especially in making political decisions.Zhongyong also highlights the importance of looking into the personal inner world, placing the cursor on self-cultivation, learning, education, discipline and (critical) self-examination, self-reflection constantly.What is more, the concept focuses on 'balance', treating others in a moderate way, neither too much nor too littlekeeping one's self and others at middle course in interactions with each other.Zhongyong thus highly recommends preparing to adapt to changing circumstances.For example, change is often problematised in The Zhongyong by means of metaphors referring to (inevitable) changes in nature: the four seasons, night and day, rotation of the earth.All in all, one could say that Zhongyong aims to lead to creating a sense of diversity in harmony with others, by balancing differences and similarities.
Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture (2022: n.p.) illustrates these basic aspects of Zhongyong as follows: 'a friend should be neither too close nor too remote.Neither in grief nor in joy should one be excessive, for unregulated happiness can be as harmful as uncontrolled sorrow.Ideally, one must adhere unswervingly to the mean, or centre course, at all times and in every situation'.In our previous work, we have defined Zhongyong especially for working on interculturality as 'a constant (inner) appeal to (counter-)balance power between self and other and to trigger and negotiate potential change in them, while retaining one's right for difference' (Tian & Dervin, 2023).We note that potential was inserted before the important idea of change here to remind ourselves that we do not necessarily need to aim for change in interculturality: 1. Change occurs all the time but we don't necessarily notice it; 2. Change does not have to be positive and/or negative; 3. Change might not be noticeable by self; 4. Change also changes, thus making it challenging to observe and discuss.
In order to summarise the main aspects of Zhongyong detailed until now and in connection to the current interpretative literature published in Chinese and English (e.g.Tian, 2022), five interrelated elements, structured under 'inner appeal' (focus on self), 'collective balance' (focus on the middle course between self and other), 'negotiate change' (focus on adaptation to change) are retained for analysing how people 'do' interculturality together, emphasising power relations and change.o Adaptation and change.
Guiding our use of this analytical framework, another aspect of Zhongyong needs to be taken into account.Schopenhauer's (2015) metaphor for problematising sociality is very useful to make sense of the complexities of Zhongyong for interculturality: in the winter, porcupines huddle together to protect themselves from freezing, but their quills can force them apart if they huddle too close.The porcupines need to repeat the movement of the two poles of togetherness and separation in order to find or discover a way of moderate distance from one another to keep warm in the cold.In this regard, having the right to this very 'state' of trying to balance ourselves with others is something that each and every one of us can work on, at times being successful, at others unsuccessfulor both at the same time.
There is a parallel to be made here with a 'double' understanding of Zhongyong.On the one hand, e.g.The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary 现代汉语词典 (2005, p. 1765) discusses Zhongyong as 'being impartial or unbiased when we are with people and to adjust one's attitude to a middle position that does not bend to any side' (see discussions above).Zhongyong here is about self-learning through encounters, observations of other people, timely and cadenced change, and balancing similarities and diversities.Zhongyong advocates sustainable development for human relationships and can lead us to positive and balanced reflections when we meet others.On the other hand, many Chinese seem to understand the concept today as 'a person whose ability and behaviour are mediocre' (The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary 现代汉语词典, 2005, p. 1765).As a never-ending process of balancing acts, Zhongyong might include moments of extreme and dishonest performance through which one might act as a 老好人 (la  o ha  o rén, lit.one who tries never to offend anybody) or 和稀泥 (Huò xī ní, trying to smooth things over).These instances might resemble Zhongyong in form but they represent poor, manipulating and immoral examples of it, 'faking' the mediating, balancing qualities of Zhongyong.As such, people might try to create interculturality on the surface and pretend that they understand each other, yet because they do not express their feelings or dare to speak their minds, the same problems in communication might happen again and again.This second understanding of Zhongyong will be referred to as 'performative' in the rest of the paper, while the former as 'Zhongyong as change'.
Making use of the five aforementioned key elements to examine Zhongyong as an analytical framework of interculturality and bearing in mind this 'double' understanding of Zhongyong, five questions are used to analyse what the students 'do' interculturally while co-constructing a piece of visual art in what follows: 1.How do the students perceive and position self during their interaction with others? 2. Are they good listeners?3. What moments of negotiation do they attend to? 4. How do they construct self when negotiating with others? 5. How do they manage change together?Figure 1 combines the five components of Zhongyong as an analytical framework for interculturality, these five questions as well as the 'double' understanding of Zhongyong ('Zhongyong-aschange'; 'performative').

Data description and method
The study took place in the very specific context of Mainland China, a superdiverse economicpolitical space.As a special under-researched form of intercultural communication education, Minzu 'ethnic' art education is a complex form of art education in China found at all levels of education and in teacher education and training (Tian et al., 2023).What it encompasses is the formal and informal teaching and learning of various art forms (e.g.block printing, calligraphy, 'Chinese painting', tangka, tie-dye) and characteristics (e.g.use of specific patterns, colours, symbols) from the 56 diverse Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' groups, at different levels of the curriculum.In this paper, we focus on specialised art education at a diverse institution of higher education located in Beijing.In the 1950s, Minzu 'ethnic' visual art education was created to train professional visual art practitioners for diverse Chinese local areas, while it was meant to help students develop (inter-)cultural understanding, and a diverse way to meet different people, artefacts and ideas (Rui, 2020).Students work together or alone by focusing on a specific diverse Chinese local group or multiple Chinese local groups to create their own artwork.
For this paper, we focus on cooperation between eight third-year undergraduate students from the major of visual communication art design of an Academy of Fine Arts at the University under review.This course was chosen for its focus on cooperation and cocreation of art pieces between different studentsa 'rare' course in this major.As a reminder our interest is in how students 'do' interculturality in the process of their negotiations, not in the outcome of their cooperation in terms of e.g.art design.For a period of 6 weeks, the students took a 120hour course entitled Minzu 'ethnic' products design, where they learnt to combine and/or mix Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' local groups' original elements and other types of elements to create and design an item of daily necessity (e.g. a notebook, phone cover, silk fan, scarf, bag, playing cards, wall paintings or wallpaper).The course was taught by two teachers, a graphic design specialist and a professor specialising in Chinese ink painting, who worked with the students separately, meeting them each week to provide them with advice and feedback on their work in progress.The students had to choose a specific Chinese Minzu local group's art as inspiration for creating a series of product designs together.They needed to submit a final project to their teachers at the end of the course, which served as a basis for final assessment.For their designs, the students made use of different elements from a specific Minzu group such as references to festivals, languages, lifestyle, while negotiating their design style and theme.Some information about the students is needed here.Eight students registered for the course agreed to be part of our study.There were six students from the majority Minzu 'ethnic' group ('Han') and two students from other Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' groups.Together they formed two project groups, with each project group containing four students.They chose the following Minzu 'ethnic' groups to create their visual art designs: the Yi group (彝族, the sixth largest 'ethnic' diverse group in China, concentrated mostly in Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Huanan Provinces, and count about 9,830,327 Yi Minzu group members, student group 1), and the Dong group (侗族, with approx.3,495,993 Dong Minzu group members living in Guizhou, Hunan, Guangxi and Hubei Provinces, student group 2).
During the course, the first author organised individual interviews twice as well as focus groups with some members of the student teams on three occasions, following the processes of experiencing and negotiating group work.The data were collected in Chinese and translated-negotiated between the authors according to the principle of reflexive and critical languaging (Dervin & Jacobsson, 2022).
The data for this paper are based on the three focus groups collected for each student group (referred to as e.g. group 1.1., the first figure being the student group number and the second the focus group session).Tables 1 and 2 show basic information about group 1 and group 2. During the three focus groups the following issues were covered: -Focus group 1: discussions around choice of a specific Chinese diverse local group, expectations and group dynamics; -Focus group 2: work progress, help from teachers and intermediary evaluation of cooperation; -Focus group 3: evaluation of joint work, group cooperation and course as a whole.
The focus groups were analysed based on Markova et al.'s (2008) analytical proposal, using dialogism.Dialogism examines how participants co-construct what they say by referring to a multiplicity of voices, referring in-/directly to their own voices and those of (absent/present) others, thus giving access to potential in-/stabilities, contradictions/coherence in how and what they say (Markova et al., 2008).As noted earlier, these represent and compose central aspects of the interand -ity of interculturality, providing insights into power relations (how do voices work together?Do they complement, ignore and/or compete with each other?) and change (a shift in the use of a specific voice might indicate acceptance, rejection of change and adaptation).Since Zhongyong follows the principles of e.g.harmony, balancing, adaptation and change, dialogism appears to be well suited to examine how the students 'do' interculturality together (see Tian & Dervin, 2023).Our focus is more specifically on moments of negotiation between the students when they discuss their work in progress.Out of the full data transcribed for pre-analysis we have carefully selected nine excerpts for the analysis to follow that are representative of the three main interrelated aspects of Zhongyong ('inner appeal', 'collective balance' and 'negotiate change').

Analysis
Based on nine carefully selected excerpts (due to space limitation), the following analysis is divided into three parts: 1.The influence of personal dimensions: negotiating Zhongyong as change; 2. The influence of group dimensions: Exploring adaption and change and the influence of others; 3. Coherence as an indicator of Zhongyong.Figure 1 and a dialogical analysis of the focus groups allowed us to identify these elements as follows: Analytical Part 1 -The influence of personal dimensions: We start from the personal dimension of the 'performative pole' to explore interculturality, using points 1 and 2 from our proposed framework (How do people perceive and position self during their interaction with others?; Are they good listeners?).For example, do the students get trapped in a 'solid' identity while talking to each other (Dervin, 2016)?Are they willing to listen to more 'diverse' voices without putting any stress on the other?Following this dimension, we can discover how they 'do' interculturality and examine how they manage or balance e.g.their negotiations by using repair that supports or cuts others' words.Analytical Part 2 -The influence of group dimensions: The collective dimension is analysed through points 2 and 3 from the framework (Free identity of self and other -How do they identify when negotiating with others?And Adaption and change -How to they manage changes?).This can help us look into the ways the students support others when someone faces trouble or unclear expressions and uses e.g.strong negative words to interrupt others' talk.Analytical part 3 -Coherence as an indicator of Zhongyong: The last part of the analysis relies on points 4 and 5 (Are they good listeners?And What moments of negotiation do they attend to?Have they changed their ideas from the beginning to the end?).Here we examine the consistency in students' discourse before and after cooperation, and especially when they face change.
Personal dimensions in negotiating the content of visual art designs Ni (2017) and Li (2020) note that Zhongyong urges people to achieve personal virtues through appropriateness while staying away from all forms of extremes.We refer to this aspect as personal dimensions here as an indication that the students are 'doing' interculturality starting from their own perspectives.In what follows, we have identified moments when the students position themselves in balanced and just ways beyond prejudice, extremes, short-term success and instant benefits.
In general, at the beginning of their cooperation, the two student groups seem to fare differently.We start with an excerpt from group 1 where the students start to negotiate the choice of a Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' group for their project: Excerpt 1 -Group 1.1 A: Maybe my idea is that we should first understand the Yi [Minzu 'ethnic'] group, summarise its own representative elements, and then express these things in our way.Then again, after, we show these things in our own way, we can also make others feel that they represent the art of the Yi group (…).C: I think we must … That is … mmm … Don't lose the essence of the diverse groups.I think that this is the most important aspect.A: Indeed, some of our classmates did this.They said that they chose a Minzu 'ethnic' group, but what they did later did not correspond to the characteristics of the original group … B: But … I still have to … Do it a little in line with the general and public aesthetics … C: The combination of these two is very important.A: Innovation and tradition … AB: Combine them well indeed.
Student A, who is from the Yi Minzu group that the group has decided to focus on, suggests that the group design should follow the 'Yi flavour' or 'local Yi diverse flavor' while using the group members' own subjective take on it to produce interesting design.Student C reminds him then that authenticity would have to be respected ('the essence'), to which A agrees, using the voice of another group of students to support C's input ('they said … ', introducing a dialogical voice).Student B, who is from another part of China, then contradicts them both arguing that the design should include 'all artistic styles' (meaning a range of local Minzu 'ethnic' arts) to meet everyone's aesthetic conceptions instead of focusing on just one Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' art style.Student A then realises that he might need to jump out of his own identity to see more design elements when working with other students rather than keeping to his own Minzu 'ethnic' art style.Very quickly he starts agreeing with student B, convinced of the latter's argument that innovation and tradition should be combined, beyond one Minzu 'ethnic' group's characteristics.In this excerpt, the students seem to come to a common understanding quickly, following B's intervention, without discussing or exchanging further about their different ways of thinking about their common artwork.Zhongyong seems to occur quickly about the matter of deciding what to do in terms of design, going beyond one Minzu 'ethnic' group design.
Group 2 seems to start from a joint understanding of what (not) to do with their design while discussing the inter-connectivity between different diverse Chinese local groups and how to meet their aesthetic needs.They seem to agree that Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' groups have individual identities that should be respected and that they thus have no 'right' to borrow Minzu 'ethnic' artistic styles out of their contexts: Excerpt 2 -Group 2.1 A: Our design should show interconnectedness.B: After all, I feel that I know too little about this Minzu 'ethnic' group.A: And you can't design something completely different from the group aesthetics.(…) B: Anyway, I think it takes some effort to design this thing after all.(…) At least it has to be the design of this Minzu 'ethnic' group.(…) (…) A: Yes, yes … It must be in line with … Minzu 'ethnic' art innovation … I don't think it's suitable for outsiders.I think we still need our own people to see it.In fact, there are some things that outsiders don't understand.Internally … Only local people can understand what is Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' art.
On several occasions in this excerpt, the students emphasise the exclusivity of the Minzu 'ethnic' group that they wish to focus on.Student A puts forward the argument that, as outsiders from another Minzu 'ethnic' group, they cannot understand and get to know the art style of certain Chinese local groups, with other students confirming his views.Between them, Zhongyong seems to go smoothly since they start from the same refusal to engage artistically with art forms that they are not familiar with, being respectful of other Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' groups.
Ideologically and in terms of negotiations, the two groups vary at the beginning of their cooperation.While some members of group 1 have different opinions about what to do with the Minzu 'ethnic' group but come to a joint understanding after a student's intervention and reminder of the necessity to 'mix' to please a more general audience, group 2 agrees straight away about the need to refrain from working on another group of which one might not know enough.Zhongyong (Yao, 2017) takes different shapes here argument-wise and based on personal input and characteristics (e.g.belonging or not to a specific group), and yet the two groups seem to come to a joint agreement on how to proceed in choosing a Minzu 'ethnic' group.

The influence of collective dimensions in cooperating
Working on a Minzu 'ethnic' design requires complex negotiating with other students, the two teacher-advisers and representations of what the Minzu 'ethnic' group under review might require (see 'Personal dimensions in negotiating the content of visual art designs').These involve balancing otherness with otherness (the inter-) and constantly considering change (-ity).
As a reminder, the most important element in Zhongyong is observing and accepting change in self and others as one interacts and influences each other (Xu, 2015).Thus, Zhongyong changes through time and people need to manage different changes and moments, even when they negotiate with the same person or group.
We can see the different positions and roles taken on and modified by the team members in the following excerpt: In this excerpt, we can see the different positions and roles taken on by the different team members.We note that the students decide together who the mediators are for different occasions based on personal characteristics and abilities.On the one hand, they choose strong professional abilities in specialised courses for managing teamwork issues.On the other hand, they select a mediator who is very outgoing and conversable to present their teamwork during the focus group.Agreement for their decisions is marked by laughing and speaking in unison in the data.Group 1 seems to adapt and change the team figures on different occasions, and they do not select mediators as someone who is a powerful figure, instead they seem to renegotiate suitable people with distinctive tasks.
In Excerpt 4 from the same group but during focus group 2, the guidance of the teacher to help people work together to think about how they can improve their work is discussed.The fact that the students have to work with two different teachers during their project adds to the interculturality of their negotiations: Excerpt 4 -Group 1.2 I: Are you satisfied with the progress of your current work?Why? C: just so so … (Students ABCD laugh together) A: The main reason is that we are not effective enough.C: I feel that this is a set of tasks.I feel that if I do it, I have never done this before, because I think that Teacher Zhang is relatively strict.For example, about the pattern … We have had this kind of class before.If we combine the patterns by ourselves and then color them and draw the finished products after color matching, I think every step is very difficult … (…) C: (…) I … at first, Teacher Zhang didn't say that he wanted me to innovate the shape of the bag we are designing, but I felt that it was very difficult to change the shape.I sewed it like this, and then put the pattern I mentioned on it.
In general, the students find one of the teachers' requirements difficult.They also maintain that they are not good enough to deal with e.g.matching patterns and colours from the Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' group in question.However, although the students think they cannot follow the teacher's guidance, Student C shows, in complex dialogical forms in the excerpt, alternating between voices, that she is able to combine his guidelines and her own personal design preferences, thus balancing between the teacher and herself.In this case, group 1 seems to be able to manage change by adapting to the teacher's requirements by themselves, which could be in accord with 'long-term' Zhongyong ('Zhongyong-as-change' in Figure 1).
In Excerpt 5 group 2 students discuss the colours of their design, however, we note that there is no real negotiation but orders appear to be given to others.The teacher is rarely mentioned by this group and his voice is often 'camouflaged': Excerpt 5 -Group 2.2 B: (referring to student A) He said yesterday that he would let me adjust the colour saturation level.He said how about adjusting it to the left, and then back.I said what's the difference?(everyone laughs) A: I keep letting him see (referring to student B), I have to push for colour degrees, I must think … (…) This depends on others … You have to cooperate with each other.It may be a little different (the whole design) and it won't work, you know … So, you have to plan as a whole.B: I don't think we three are suitable for assembly line work, because at each stage … (…) I think everyone does a good job, but if we talk about group cooperation, it is not only the homework itself that limits you, but also the cooperation between group members also limits the ability of individuals to play a role, so … A: A group of three leaders … B: Yes, it feels like three people with three ideas.(…) I: Will you follow the teacher's opinion?A: I think in the end it's up to us to decide.
The excerpt starts with Student B reenacting a 'heated' dialogue with Student A about colour saturation levels for their joint design.Student A, who appears to be some kind of a leader in the focus groups (see his use of modals such as 'have to' and 'must', Markova et al., 2008).His words are often very strong and he does not seem to listen to others when it comes to change and adaptation (here about colour saturation).B adds to A's arguments about the lack of cooperation between them, explaining that each of them does a good 'individual' job in the process, to which A adds that they are 'a group of three leaders'.In general, in the focus groups, students from group 2 show that they care about working with each other but that they don't seem willing to have real communication about their designs and to negotiate them together.In a similar vein, Student A claims that the teacher's advice is considered as 'optional' by the team.Zhongyong here could appear to be 'performative', on the go, rather than 'change'.
The members of group 1 appear to be good listeners, thus following the principle of the selfother relational perspective from The Zhongyong (Yao, 2017) between them and with the teacher.They can modify choices and be flexible towards change (see Cheng, 2020 about the importance of exchange and mobility of change within Zhongyong).On the contrary, group 2 tends to focus on student A's suggestions and ignore team members' as well as teachers' recommendations.As a whole this team does not seem able to balance otherness with otherness, apparently drifting towards the performative pole of Zhongyong, whereby people might agree with each other unconvincingly, just performing a task together.We note, however, that both groups show criticality and reflectivity towards their joint work although their concrete cooperation seems to differ.

Coherence as an indicator of Zhongyong
Zhongyong can navigate between the two poles of 'truths' and 'lies', 'discourses and actions', between what people say and do.In order to evaluate the potential coherence of doing Zhongyongi.e. how much of the balancing process relies on change rather than mere performance, how much power relations are put into questionwe trace here the different stages in the students' moments of negotiation from the beginning to the end.Zhongyong-as-change represents a call for and a balancing of some sort of unity between saying and doing (Xu, 2015).Thus, following up from 'The influence of collective dimensions in cooperating', this analytical sub-section focuses on the coherence of one's actions matching one's words versus e.g.pretending to understand, agree and negotiate.
In Excerpt 6 students from group 1 share the reasons why they chose their Minzu 'ethnic' group for the design during the first focus group discussions: Excerpt 6 -Group 1.1 I: Which Minzu 'ethnic' group are you going to use for your design?A: I didn't choose before C: It seems that they all said that they would be the people of Brother Ma I: What about the choice of team members?C: We have done … We have done it together for a long time, and then as long as it is a team, we are all together without hesitation.B: Mainly … Just … This is the information available … (BC laugh together) I: Is it because Student A is from the Yi local group, so everyone wants to have student Yi? C: Yes … B: Because … it is better … Better to understand those … C: At first, I was also very interested in the Yi Minzu 'ethnic' group art style (…) Everyone seems involved in the conversion in the excerpt, as well as reaching a consensus: they have worked together as a team for a long time and they feel comfortable with each other; including Student A from the targeted Minzu 'ethnic' group had to do with his link to the very Yi group.From a coherence perspective, one notices that group 1 always appears to be cooperating from a Zhongyong way.In Excerpt 7 from the second focus group, the same attitudes seem to apply: Excerpt 7 -Group 1.2 B: I mainly mean to learn from … student A, just … Yes, I keep asking him (referring to student A) about things I don't understand, and then, like those who don't understand Yi, I keep turning to him if I don't understand it C: Because we could not go to the Yi Minzu area of the country, this is a nice substitute … Because we want to do more Yi art after graduation, and we want to go to Student A's hometown together in the summer vacation to get a feeling of their art … The group members from group 1 use 'keep asking' and 'keep looking' to explain that their negotiation was a pleasant experience, because they could ask for help at any time without any stress.kind, local Miao Minzu group' or 'I will want to know more about the Miao Minzu 'ethnic' group'.There might be several reasons why student B asserted that he did not agree with others but he does not explain why.We might argue that one of reasons might be that, at the beginning, he seems to be looking forward to being with his team, yet, since his team cannot negotiate so well during the rest of their cooperation so he starts to be against the team leader's (Student A) 'orders' by remaining silent and also losing his interests in Miao Minzu group art.
As we asserted before, the principles of harmony in diversity, flexibility and change from the framework of Zhongyong aim to help interactants find a balance point between extremes.Firstly, since misunderstanding or non-understanding often happen in interculturality (Dervin, 2016), Zhongyong urges us to speak from 'self', to create a balanced negotiation process and achieve equal communication to negotiate misunderstanding or non-understanding.Secondly, human relations are fragile and people cannot avoid change (Bauman, 2011).Xu (2015) interprets Zhongyong as a never-ending process which has the same characteristics as interculturality.Group 1 seems to fulfil Zhongyong as change in the data, showing their feelings and appearing to be able to manage different types of transformation.Group 2 clearly performs surface interculturality and thus short-term Zhongyong, showing in this section that there is a lot of unsaid and silenced in their negotiations during the focus groups and beyond.

Discussion and conclusion
This paper aimed to link a Chinese concept from Confucianism, Zhongyong, interculturality and education, within the specific context of Minzu 'ethnic' art education in Mainland Chinaa special and under-explored form of intercultural communication education where students from different Minzu 'ethnic' groups have to discuss, negotiate and co-create art forms.In the study, two groups of students had to discuss how they negotiated together (supervised by two teacher-advisers) local Minzu 'ethnic' art designs during focus groups.Zhongyong was used as an analytical framework, allowing us to complement current and critical research on power relations and change in relation to interculturality.Interculturality and Zhongyong were problematised together, highlighting the importance of observing change while focusing on 1. 'inner appeal' (reflexivity and criticality, curiosity and inclusive heart), 2. 'collective balance' (harmony in diversity, free identity of self and other) and 3. the ability to adapt to change during negotiations ('negotiate change').Each of these components of Zhongyong as an analytical framework for interculturality are reviewed for the two groups of students in what follows: 'Inner appeal': 1. Reflectivity and criticality: group 1 seemed to be able to reflect on their thinking after others speak, so as to enrich their sense of togetherness during the negotiations.They appeared to be glad to rethink and reposition themselves, as well as to adapt and blend different views in order to balance power relations.Group 2 tended to start from their own perspective and communication seemed to remain at the surface, the further we move into the focus groups.2. Curiosity and inclusive heart to observe and listen to others' voices and examine language elements: group 1 tolerated different opinions; they used smiles and pet names for each other; and made use of repair to support each other so that everyone had equal discursive power.On the contrary, group 2 had a strong power figure who prevented others from expressing themselves for fear of making him angry.
'Collective balance': 3. Harmony in diversity: group 1 faced different ideas from teachers and group members, but seemed able to balance these different elements in their work in order to meet different needs.Group 2 did not take teacher guidance into account, and ignored some of the group members' suggestions.4. Free identity of self and other: group 1 showed that their group identity appeared to be more important than their personal identities.It also seemed able to 'integrate' the style of other Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' groups, demonstrating an important level of flexibility.Although group 2 had richer conversations at first around the ethical issue of working on groups of which one is not a member, personal identities and choices seemed to prevail during their negotiations and decisions were thus made by individuals rather than collectively (Dervin, 2016).
'Negotiate change': 5. Adaption and change: For group 1 changes happened easily and they appeared willing to accept them.This triggered interests in getting to know other diverse local groups.Group 2 also seemed to be passionate about Chinese Minzu 'ethnic' art, but they didn't seem able to manage change together, which caused some students to lose the interests in other Minzu 'ethnic' groups and to be inconsistent in the way they negotiate their designs.
What the use of the Zhongyong analytical framework has allowed us to do is to examine how groups work together interculturally, aiming (or notand incompletely) for the three main components of Zhongyong as described in this paper (Cheng, 2020;Xu, 2015).We note that some aspects of Zhongyong can be achieved by most participants (e.g.criticality and reflexivity) while, at the same time, other aspects can be absent from what people do together and/or perform.The difference in understanding that we made between Zhongyong-as-change and Zhongyong as performative (see Figure 1) is important in this sense since it can allow us to focus on what we referred to as 'coherences' (i.e.how much their Zhongyong appears to be genuine) in the way people 'do' interculturality.What the use of Zhongyong as an analytical framework also shows is how un-balanced power relations do affect opening up to change and transforming together.Group 2 for example experienced strong (and unspoken) power differentials, which led to Zhongyong being mostly performative.
This paper represents but one example of how a concept from the 'margins' of internationally influential research on interculturality (a confucian concept) can help us add to, but also renew and revise, the way we examine, problematise and enrich what is often considered as a 'universal' and yet 'glocalised' notion, interculturality (see Dervin, 2022).In order to develop our takes on power relations and change as central aspects of interculturality, Zhongyong can help us identify some of the in-/coherences, un-/ethical positions and performances that intercultural speakers adopt (temporarily) both in negotiating together with others and considering diverse forms of knowledges and e.g.(in this paper) art design elements in educational contexts.We argue that the proposed framework of Zhongyong can also serve as a pedagogical and research tool to (self-) observe the ways one cooperates with others over short-and long-term, gauging and reflecting on the processes of negotiating with others, following the three aspects described in the Zhongyong framework.We do recommend exploring other alternative concepts and notions from outside the 'West', as complements to current scholarship on interculturality, so as to constantly enrich the way we think about and with interculturality (see Menon, 2023).
There remain some limitations to the use of a Zhongyong framework to work on interculturality.One of the problems, which has been noted with other perspectives in intercultural communication education, is that our data derive from focus groups organised outside the concrete negotiating spaces of co-creation, relying in this paper on discourses on actions and (long-term) relationships outside the sphere of the study.We feel that it would thus be important to observe, contrast and analyse different types of data using Zhongyong to provide an even more balanced picture of power relations and change in 'the making' in such educational contexts (see Tian et al., 2023).

Excerpt 3 -
Group 1.3 I(nterviewer): How did you organise the negotiations?C: Someone has a leading role D: Right, Xiao Fang (nickname of student B).(A laughing) I: B didn't talk much during our interview.C: But when he did the work, he did most of the work for our group.I: Is B leading your group?C: He just doesn't like talking.D: Right.(… …) I: Let's take a look at your work now.Who is the spokesman to introduce your group?AB: Jingjing (refers to student C)

Table 1 .
Basic information for student group 1.

Table 2 .
Basic information for student group 2.