Increasing migrations across the world mean leaders at all levels need to become more competent in working across cultures. During the past 30 years, program designers, researchers, and others have investigated intercultural competence (ICC), often described as the capability to accurately understand and adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities. Tertiary education programs (TEP) are accepting these challenges by offering experiences (such as coursework, study away, study abroad, cultural events, etc.) that are intended to produce culturally competent graduates. The teaching and learning experiences described in this study at a midwestern American university may inform others. This study examined archived data from two courses designed to enhance undergraduates’ ICC. Researchers expected that students who completed a course, called Critical Race Theory in Education (CRT), would show statistically larger gains during a second course, called Human Relations in a Multicultural Society (HRMS). At the beginning and conclusion of HRMS, students completed the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Researchers used the two-sample t-test to compare the pre-HRMS scores of students who had completed CRT and students who had not completed CRT. Analysis showed students who took CRT before HRMS had statistically significantly higher beginning scores than students who had not completed CRT before they enrolled in HRMS (p=. 042). Although students who completed CRT started HRMS with the higher IDI mean score, those individuals did not make statistically significant gains in their ICC during the HRMS course (p=. 130). However, the students who had not completed CRT before HRMS did make statistically significant gains in their ICC during the HRMS course (p<. 001). These results, with additional research, could be used to redesign the courses or to design other curricula approaches.

This study examines what factors contribute to intercultural learning during the study abroad experience, drawing on Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning and data from the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Using data from 1,858 US students studying abroad in 27 countries over 6 years (2014–2020), this study constitutes the largest of its kind to date. Additionally, a powerful matching method is used to compare a sample of students enrolled in an Intercultural Communication and Leadership (ICL) course developed by the Council on International Education Exchange (CIEE) with a control group of study abroad students not enrolled in the course. Findings show that cultural mentorship via trained, skilled instructors is more important than other factors associated with intercultural learning while abroad. Furthermore, the findings highlight why international education faculty and administrators should advocate for study abroad in non-English-speaking locations and immersion in cultures that are more dissimilar to the dominant cultural context of US students. The highest learning potential in study abroad occurs when students experience heightened moments of cultural disorientation in unfamiliar cultural contexts and have experienced facilitators to guide them through reflection around intercultural differences.

Reflecting upon self-identity is important for teachers and teacher candidates, many of whom have different backgrounds from their multicultural, multilingual students. In this study I analyze data from cultural excavation activities completed by ten teacher candidates during study abroad in Peru, in which they critically reflected upon their own identities in relation to the cultural environments of their study abroad experience. Findings from activities and the Intercultural Development Inventory showed increased intercultural sensitivity among most participants, while focus group responses pointed to the cultural excavation activities as scaffolding this movement. Participant responses also demonstrated increased contextual awareness regarding their and others’ identities, a crucial notion for combatting essentialist conceptions of culture.

This research study explored the culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) development of a cohort of doctoral students immersed in a Leadership in Schooling program. In this study, a phenomenological qualitative research approach was utilized to capture the essence of each practitioner-leader’s personal story as well as to identify and better understand the perceptions and common experiences among the practitioner-leaders who participated in the research. The hypothesis was that Cape University’s efforts to design and redesign their Leadership in Schooling doctoral program could improve the CRSL development of their practitioner-leaders to become better equipped to serve students from marginalized communities. Prior research indicates that institutions of higher education should provide courses and curriculum that prepare their students to be culturally relevant educators (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and that CRSL are more primed to meet the schooling needs of students from communities experiencing marginalization (Khalifa et al., 2016). The significance of this study is that it can support the advancement of education doctoral program design, particularly for programs who seek CRSL as a desired outcome. It also emphasizes the importance of measuring CRSL growth, offers suggestions as to how such growth can be measured, and provides considerations of program components that may be created or restructured to better cultivate their students’ CRSL development.

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of intercultural learning modules introduced to a faculty and staff study abroad program. Using data from 2014-2018 of Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) scores, this study compared control (2014-2015) and treatment (2016-2018) IDI mean score differences due to the new modules introduced in 2016. The results indicate that the introduction of five intercultural learning modules and individualized goal-setting led to positive IDI growth in comparison with the control group. Despite program participants of all years taking part in daily journaling with program mentors, these results suggest that participating in intercultural learning modules before, during, and after travel and setting individualized intercultural goals were key to intercultural learning. In addition, this study provides evidence that best practices for student study abroad programs can also be applied to faculty and staff intercultural professional development.