In this chapter the authors will discuss the importance of intercultural education and training for the purpose of high quality work of police officers during international missions. The Slovene Police is among other basic work areas also responsible for international cooperation, such as cooperation with Europol, Interpol, etc. and among others it his together with Slovene Armed Forces also responsible for international missions. The integration of intercultural perspectives into their education and training is due to the special work conditions during work in international missions highly important. The authors will present the theoretical aspect of the importance of intercultural training for all the employees that work in special intercultural environment and conditions as well as present the results of empirical study. Furthermore, the chapter will present the results of research which was conducted in 2014 among Slovene police officers included in international missions from the beginning in 1997 until 2014.
TopCulture And Intercultural Environment
Culture could be defined in numerous different ways. One of the first contemporary definitions of culture was set by Tylor (1974), who define culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
One of the first authors dealing with value system, which presented basis for cultural research is Milton Rokeach. Rokeach (1973) distinguished terminal and instrumental values. First types of values are the goals that a person would like to achieve during his or her life and such values vary among different groups of people in different cultures. Rokeach (1973) suggested these values are: true friendship, mature love, happiness, inner harmony, equality, freedom, pleasure, social recognition, wisdom, salvation, family security, national security, a sense of accomplishment, beauty and peace, a comfortable and exciting life. The second, instrumental values, refer to preferable modes of behavior and these values are preferable modes of behavior, or means of achieving the terminal values. The instrumental values are according to Rokeach (1973): cheerfulness, ambition, love, cleanliness, self-control, capability, courage, politeness, honesty, imagination, independence, intellect, broad-mindedness, logic, obedience, helpfulness, responsibility and forgiveness.