With increased attention in higher education on students’ ability to engage with and prepare professionally for work within a pluralistic global community, institutions, faculty, and student services have turned to identifying intentional interventions to galvanize student intercultural competence. This mixed-methods study adds to prior research, particularly limited qualitative knowledge, investigating the effect of high-impact practices on first-year students’ intercultural competence development. Furthermore, within intercultural competence scholarship there is an emphasis on lifelong learning and the idea that intercultural competence is not developed in a moment in time but rather through increasing and continuous curiosity about the world and its people. This provoked further inquiry on the timing of intentional interventions in buoying students’ positive attitudes toward intercultural competence learning for the duration of their undergraduate tenure. International and domestic student-participant narratives augmented quantitative data gathered through pre-semester Intercultural Development Inventory assessments. These components form a framework to analyze which interventions are most effective at priming first-year students for lifelong intercultural learning. Additionally, as research isolating the first-year experience as a basis of analysis is limited, the study sought to illuminate student understanding and engagement with intercultural competence within this specific timeframe to infer if the timing of high-impact practices matters. Themes emerged from student reflections following activities and high-impact practices experienced in the first year of study at a four-year private business college in Massachusetts, indicating a steady increase of student understanding and engagement with intercultural learning. The findings support previous research and help to further insights into the future implementation and assessment of intercultural competence dev

This study answers an academic call to action by intersectional scholars to engage in anti-racism work (Galán et al., 2021) by utilizing intercultural competence curriculum to educate college students to oppose racism and promote equality. One effective tool that could support, sustain, and strengthen anti-racism behaviors is intercultural competence curriculum (Hammer, 2008), building off of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) framework, which is a developmental model that supports an individual’s capacity to address structural racism and other forms of oppression and marginalization (Wiersma-Mosley, 2021). The IDI framework can foster intercultural competence among students to recognize their own cultural identity and to interact effectively and appropriately with people from other cultures (Hammer, 2008). The IDI posits that an individual’s developmental orientation—how one constructs worldview ideas and responds to cultural differences and commonalities—can influence and structure the ability to engage and address anti-racism (Harewood & Zemsky, 2020). For the current study, the IDI was chosen as the framework because of its evidence-based, stage-like progression for implementing antiracist education and high-impact experiences into higher education.

This article describes a research study of a three‐semester elementary Italian language curriculum at a large Midwestern research university that incorporates intercultural competence (IC) training through cognitive dissonance image analyses, conversations with native speakers, classroom discussion, and reflections to determine the impact of this curriculum on learners’ development of IC. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered over three semesters to assess students’ IC and identify insights into the developmental processes. Students’ development of IC was measured in pre‐ and posttests using the Intercultural Development Inventory. Students demonstrated positive growth in IC with 9‐point gains in developmental orientation scores (p < .001). Qualitative data from student interviews and reflections were analyzed using the VALUE rubric of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and illustrate that students increased awareness of cultural self and different others, applied openness and curiosity in intercultural interactions, and developed skills for empathy and perspective taking. While previous studies on language courses with no or limited intercultural learning content failed to prove effective in promoting IC growth, this study suggests that purposeful integration of IC materials and activities can promote intercultural development in elementary language learners.

Challenges resulting in poor employee engagement emerge when the reality of an increasingly globalized business landscape contributing to an expanding multicultural workforce is ignored or mismanaged, which includes difficulties with organizational commitment, cross-cultural interpersonal relations, employee satisfaction, and retention of employees. The effectiveness of fostering engagement in a culturally diverse workforce is relative to the meaning managers make of cultural differences. To make a real and meaningful impact on managers’ effectiveness as leaders of employee engagement, cultural development strategies must affect the efficacy of both knowledge and skill, transcending simple awareness by advancing the capacity to adapt behavior to cultural differences. The purpose of this qualitative, instrumental case study was to inform the effectiveness of cultural development strategies by understanding how managers’ intercultural competence influences their contributions to employee engagement. One overarching question was addressed: How do managers’ intercultural competence influence their contributions to employee engagement? Additionally, the following three questions informed the overarching question and guided the research: a) How do managers describe their management experiences and approaches contributing to employee engagement, b) In what ways is IC reflected in managers’ descriptions of their management experiences and approaches contributing to employee engagement, and c) How are managers’ descriptions of their management experiences and approaches contributing to employee engagement different and similar across IC developmental orientations? A total of six managers participated in this study by completing the Intercultural Development Inventory™ and participating in individual interviews. The findings of this study revealed that managers’ perceptions and behavioral approaches around employee engagement reflect their intercultural competence and suggest

To adequately address the unprecedented challenges that our global society faces, the next generation of scientists and engineers must learn to navigate and collaborate with an understanding of the complex ways in which technical and social aspects are intertwined. In recent years, programs centered around Engineering for Sustainable Development, community engagement, and humanitarian engineering have been developed to provide students with opportunities that build essential skill sets known as Global Sociotechnical Competency. This work investigated the impact on intercultural competence of students engaging with globally focused courses and projects offered at The Ohio State University that are part of the Humanitarian Engineering program. Quantitative and qualitative research methodologies including the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), focus groups, surveys, and narrative analysis, were utilized to assess the student learning outcomes associated with these experiential learning opportunities. Findings from this work indicate that engineering students are able to simultaneously develop both technical and sociotechnical skill sets, which will more effectively prepare STEM graduates for their professional careers.