Global,international,and intercultural learning in university classrooms across the disciplines

Abstract

Classroom pedagogies that foster global, international, and intercultural (GII) learning across academic disciplines have the potential to reach all matriculated students, preparing them for diversity in their immediate communities, the international reach of their professions, and their responsibilities as citizens in the world. A number of empirical research studies and professional reports present instructors’ experiences with innovative pedagogies that embed GII learning within existing courses or lead to the design of new courses totally dedicated to the development of intercultural communicative competence. In this article, a review of these studies summarizes the basic features of these efforts, identifies commonalities across practices, and takes note of innovations showing promise for emulation or further study. Of particular value is the analysis of the outcomes the authors report from their efforts and the ways they have assessed their results. These assessments reveal degrees of success in meeting stated learning goals as well as limitations with regard to what has been achieved. The article concludes with a proposed research agenda that would help academics strengthen GII classroom learning. Future research could (a) provide an understanding of GII competencies needed by alumni in their professions and civic engagement, (b) consider how GII learning might take place with an intentional plan across the course of degree programs, and (c) examine how to address gaps and limitations in current classroom practice.Keywords

Keywords

Global international and intercultural competence curriculum internationalization learning outcomes multicultural classroom

Introduction

Taking the stance that the academic curriculum is the foundation for international education, I seek to understand how we can better identify and assess classroom pedagogies that foster global, international, and intercultural (GII) competence among university students. As we look across disciplines, how do we currently prepare students for the interplay of same and differing worldviews and cultural practices among the people whom they will encounter in collaborative and competitive professional work and in their communities? What do research studies say about classroom pedagogies that attempt to develop some of the range of competencies articulated in prevailing models of intercultural communicative competence (Bennett, 1986; Byram, 1997; Deardorff, 2006; Fantini, 2006; King and Baxter Magolda, 2005)? How can we determine if the results of internationalized teaching efforts are impactful and long-lasting? In this article, I review research studies and professional reports on classroom practices used to cultivate university students’ GII abilities.

In her article reviewing the evolution of the internationalization of higher education, Knight (2004: 11) used the phrase “International, intercultural, and global dimension” to capture the full range of higher education international activity. She explained:

These terms are intentionally used as a triad, as together they reflect the breadth of internationalization. International is used in the sense of relationships between and among nations, cultures, or countries. But we know that internationalization is also about relating to the diversity of cultures that exists within countries, communities, and institutions, and so intercultural is used to address the aspects of internationalization at home. Finally, global, a very controversial and value-laden term these days, is included to provide the sense of worldwide scope. These three terms complement each other and together give richness both in breadth and depth to the process of internationalization.

In this literature review, the “global, international, and intercultural (GII)” triad refers to a full range of experiences and learning resulting from intentional pedagogies to prepare students for diversities in their immediate communities and professional environments, the international or global reach of their professions, and their responsibilities as citizens in the world. My focus is on the physical classroom itself—the locus that involves every matriculated student. Only some will study abroad. It is the classroom where everyone can potentially prepare for a globalized future. In the classroom, students can bring forward for consideration incidental intercultural learning from life experiences or co-curricular activity and learning from past academic experiences. It should be a place where those who avoid contact with individuals whom they consider to be different from themselves can receive scaffolded support to try new ways of thinking and practice new behaviors about perceived differences in people.

Generally speaking, the motivation to develop curricula for GII learning arises from the trend toward globalization, which has an impact on higher education. In recent decades, the dramatic mobility of students around the world seeking higher education degrees or exchange experiences has changed the characteristics of student bodies at receiving institutions, especially in English-speaking western countries. Yet, the vast majority of students are not mobile. Some scholars have thought about ways that the presence of both international and domestic students could enhance the possibilities of genuine intercultural communication with regard to learning in the classroom. Mobility patterns, of course, are not uniform and there are many institutions where the presence of international students does not produce a large enough critical mass for most students to experience their diversity. Different strategies for GII learning are needed in these locations. The Internationalization at Home (IaH) movement, originating in Europe, is one response to these conditions (Crowther et al., 2000); its many variations aim to prepare all students to engage with a culturally complex, globalized world. The scholarship on IaH includes highly varied views on what students need to know about the world, what the GII dimensions of the academic disciplines themselves are, the importance of foreign language mastery, and the role of experiential education in preparing graduates to engage with difference productively. The studies reviewed here are examples of IaH.

Scholars have posited that a wide range of knowledge, skills, and attitudinal qualities constitutes what is commonly called intercultural communicative competence or global competence. Authors have turned to influential models for the theoretical basis of developing GII competence for the classroom studies that are discussed in this article (Bennett, 1986; Deardorff, 2006). They have also relied heavily on scholars who developed principles and plans for GII learning pedagogies (Arkoudis et al., 2010; Leask, 2009; Mak et al., 1998). More recently, several scholars have written books that serve as guides for developing GII learning. These texts examine the global environment for which we are preparing our students, notions of the GII capabilities and skills needed by graduates, theoretical and practical principles for GII learning, ways faculty might prepare to include GII learning in their courses, and examples of learning activities (Deardorff and Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017; Killick, 2015; Killick, 2018; Leask, 2015).

Scope of review

This review of empirical studies and professional reports about efforts to foster GII learning in undergraduate and graduate university classrooms reveals two broad approaches: those in which a form of GII learning intervention has been embedded in the disciplinary topic of the course (unit); and those in which the entire course is devoted to the development of GII competence. To locate the studies, I used the search terms “internationalization of the curriculum,” “internationalization of pedagogy,” “multicultural classroom,” “multicultural group work,” and “global learning” paired with “college or university or higher education” in Academic Search Ultimate and Web of Science. The inclusion criteria for the articles are that they be studies about the experience of faculty and students in university-level, credit-bearing courses in which there was a pedagogical intervention to foster some elements of GII competencies, and that there was an evaluation or assessment of the results of said intervention. The search yielded 35 articles meeting these criteria. In addition, I include 10 reports on courses that focus entirely on GII competency development from a volume of case studies edited by Deardorff and Arasaratnam-Smith (2017). Once these articles were identified, it turned out that each presented researchers’ experiences in relation to different course topics, encompassing a wide range of different disciplines. The studies took place primarily in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States, with a few from other European and Asian countries. Descriptive coding of the studies captured a wide variety of researcher perspectives and practices around broad themes found in all reports: faculty motivation for including GII learning elements in a course; institutional and disciplinary contexts; pedagogical intervention choices; student behaviors; and assessed outcomes. Then, analytic coding supported the examination of relationships among the different elements that had been identified, for example, the relationship between the academic discipline and GII competencies. Taken together, these articles present a wide variety of aims, ideas, and practices and do not produce any consensus on pedagogical actions. In this article, I synthesize the patterns of thought and practice that cut across a number of the articles considered, and showcase individual researchers’ innovations and their reflections for further consideration in the planning of future curricular development and research.

Motivation for introducing GII learning into the classroom

In the classroom studies reviewed, generally, an instructor’s motivation for introducing some form of GII was to strengthen professional preparation. Some saw their academic disciplines as strongly shaped by emerging global knowledge; they believed that drawing attention to global dimensions of knowledge dissemination and practice during degree programs could elevate the quality of future professional practice among their graduates (Ferreira et al., 2012; Waldron, 2017). Others explained how pressures from globalization had an impact on their field, as in the following statement from Capobianco et al. (2018: 179) about public administration:

As a result of both voluntary migration and forced displacement, families, cultures, and languages are more widely dispersed. . . . In particular, professionals in the public sector need to learn how to leverage the benefits of greater diversity within and across public organizations, and how to better serve more diverse communities.

In fact, the calls by governments, universities, professional associations, and accrediting bodies for professional degree programs to turn out graduates with intercultural skills influenced the decisions of several researchers to add GII learning components to courses (Capobianco et al., 2018; Daly et al., 2015; Edmead, 2013; Ippolito, 2007; Knott et al., 2013). Some cited theories of intercultural competence specifically articulated for their professions.

The international diversity of students found in many classrooms stimulated these scholars to see student diversity as a resource for enhancing intercultural awareness and providing authentic global perspectives on course content (Daly et al., 2015; Edmead, 2013; Etherington, 2014; Ippolito, 2007; Knott et al., 2013; McGrath-Champ et al., 2013; Waldron, 2017). Several authors expressed considerable distress at witnessing the isolation of international students; they experimented with GII learning strategies to improve the classroom climate and help diverse students interact more comfortably with each other (Cruickshank et al,. 2012; Edmead, 2013; Etherington, 2014; Reid and Garson, 2017). For instructors who had previously encountered difficulties with small groups in which students perceived difference as an obstacle to learning, introducing intercultural learning pedagogies improved both the effectiveness of collaboration and student satisfaction (Cruickshank et al., 2012; Reid and Garson, 2017). A commitment to equalize power among diverse students, engage them in establishing dialogue that was inclusive of all, and encourage each one to share expertise motivated several to boldly restructure the interactive components of their classes (Cruickshank et al., 2012; Grimes-MacLellan, 2015; Waldron, 2017).

Whereas a number of authors mention global citizenship as an important value, only a few counter the attention on careerism to focus seriously on social justice and global ethical concerns. Clarke (2005) explored the remembering, forgetting, and forgiveness of traumatic historical events, drawing on the personal perspectives of students from a number of countries enrolled in the course. For Ferreira et al. (2012), cultivating students’ understanding of the scientific evidence for climate change was the priority.

Interrelationship between GII learning and subject matter of the course

When faculty embed GII content into existing courses, students can see how scholarship and perspectives from different societies influence the discipline itself. For example, Willerton and Beznosov (2015) created a course about the politics of happiness and wellbeing that compared the “American Dream” and the constitutionally specified pursuit of happiness with political and developmental issues around wellbeing in European countries, China, Bhutan, and Lebanon. In this course, differing cultural perspectives were central to and pervasive in the content and the analysis to which that content was subjected. In contrast, Jin and Bennur (2012) felt they could only introduce a small amount of internationally oriented content into an already packed business curriculum. Concerned about the lack of US students’ knowledge of other parts of the world, they selected India as a topic and created modest curricular interventions that introduced students to key features of Indian culture and culturally specific practices of retailing.

Instructors often posited controversial issues highly relevant to the discipline and gave students a chance to explore differing perspectives on such issues through discussion with peers from culturally different backgrounds (Deale, 2015; Etherington, 2014; Ferreira et al., 2012; Waldron, 2017). For example, Ferreira et al. introduced approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation that involved guest lectures from around the world and student online discussion with peers in several countries.

Concerned about the dominance of western paradigms of knowledge in their fields and wanting students to challenge that dominance, some instructors used the diversity of their students to introduce alternative ways to construct knowledge and values. In a course on fashion design marketing, the instructor used a lesson on a Benetton brand advertisement to ask students to deconstruct the messages around the meaning of the men’s suit, which could be seen as a homogenized western idea of beauty repressing alternative local approaches to fashion (Waldron, 2017). In a medical physiology course, students identified major public health problems in different societies and considered how those societies approached solutions to them (Etherington, 2014).

Learning activities that resulted in a true interdependency of disciplinary learning and GII learning were the hallmark of a number of pedagogies (Krebs, 2018). In these examples, instructors embedded GII learning much more pervasively in their courses, demonstrating that GII and discipline-specific learning could reinforce each other (Cruickshank et al., 2012; Feng, 2016; Grimes-MacLellan, 2015; McGrath-Champ et al., 2013; Toyoda, 2016). Making thoughtful discussion in diverse groups a core component of daily classwork strengthened both student satisfaction and academic performance (Cruickshank et al., 2012). In McGrath-Champ’s course, students reviewed the readings together in their diverse groups and retook the quizzes as a group, thereby depending on each other for strengthened mastery of subject matter. Sometimes, students were required to inquire into the life experiences and perspectives of those from another society in order to help answer disciplinary questions (Grimes-MacLellan, 2015; Toyoda, 2016). In other cases, students had to work together with diverse peers to execute a problem-solving project. Students could not succeed in these situations without practicing the intercultural communications skills of listening and participating respectfully. In these examples, learning goals for the course multiplied as the instructors considered both the disciplinary and GII aims; additional pedagogical interventions scaffolded students for group collaboration.

Approaches to interactive GII learning

Many authors of these classroom studies sought diverse student interaction for learners to master subject matter, conduct research, collaborate, negotiate, or solve problems successfully. In thinking through their approaches, they began to consider concretely what they wanted students to experience. For example, Daly et al. (2015) wished students to experience negotiating under pressure, that is, the pressure of producing a collaborative final product for a grade. McGrath-Champ et al. (2013) wanted internationally diverse students to experience interdependence on each other; they formed diverse student teams that stayed together throughout the term so they would get to know and rely on each other. The term “awareness” so commonly used seems vague, but these educators discovered a richness in this concept. They encouraged students to develop an awareness of their insensitivity, awareness of what they might have done differently to include everyone’s perspective in their group, awareness of their habits of not really listening, and an awareness of reciprocity in contributing to each other’s learning (Feng, 2016; Grimes-MacLellan, 2015; Waldron, 2017). Etherington (2014: 152) observed, “Interestingly, the skills considered central to competence in intercultural communication – asking, rather than making assumptions, and being open to learning from the understanding of others [from Deardorff, 2006] – have strong parallels with those essential for the rigorous application of the scientific method.”

Interaction among students was generally organized by forming groups in which students collaborated to master disciplinary content together, carry out brief exercises, provide solutions to problems, and/or develop a final, major course project together. Instructors used various strategies, such as randomizing, to secure diversity in each group. Usually their idea of diversity involved mixing domestic and international students. They could do this for courses in which 25% or more of the class was from outside the home country. For courses in which little international diversity was present, student groups interacted with guest international students who served as resources (Grimes-MacLellan, 2015; Harrigan and Vicente, 2004), or worked collaboratively online with students from one or more other countries in courses that were team taught with a partner institution faculty (Capobianco et al., 2016; Deale, 2015; Ferreira et al., 2012; Shea et al., 2011; Toyoda, 2016).

Diversifying the membership in groups per se does not guarantee GII learning (Volet and Ang, 1998). In all courses with these interactive components, a number of steps were taken at the beginning of the course to prepare students for intercultural learning. Some early class sessions were devoted to introducing students to selected elements of intercultural learning theory, best practices for group work, or communication skills, including such topics as the experience of those who speak English as a second language. It is notable that these preparatory interventions were only very small elements of a course. Often the course also included exercises to help students get to know each other and have positive interactions to reduce anxiety before having to work together on projects that counted for a grade. Intercultural learning was an explicitly stated learning objective, written into syllabuses, and included in students’ performance assessments.

It seems that learning about intercultural communication cognitively may not be enough for students to apply the knowledge to real life situations. Turner (2009), for example, learned of unresolved communication problems after her course was over even though she had presented considerable information about intercultural communication early on. In some studies, instructors sought feedback from students about the collaborative processes while they were in progress by participating with them in some group discussion sessions, or asking for written reflections on the process while it was in progress. Then, they could discuss what went wrong when any unease or tensions occurred. In such cases, the instructor assumed the role of facilitator and coach (Feng, 2016; Lawrence, 2013; Shea et al., 2011).

In fact, having students pay attention to communicative processes in their groups was recognized as essential by a number of investigators (Krebs, 2018). Ippolito (2007) described students who felt conflicted between the time it took to get to know and collaborate with people in a group and the time pressure to get things done. Edmead (2013) identified the importance of establishing a course environment that balances the time commitment to attend to intercultural communication with the time pressure to achieve academically. She noticed that communication that takes into account differing language uses, work styles, perspectives, and communicative styles takes time. Recognizing students’ efforts to focus on process and communication, not just on a final academic product, changes course objectives and delivery. Sometimes, an assignment given to students by faculty was to reflect on the processes of working in a group, to identify problems and how these problems were addressed (or not) in the group (Edmead, 2013; Ippolito, 2007; Reid and Garson, 2017). There was a feeling that evaluating students on their participation in the communicative processes helped to make everyone accountable.

Among the studies in which online collaboration with an international partner was a key feature, investigators discovered pitfalls and keys to success. Lawrence (2013) warned that online communication can cause students to perceive greater cultural difference in peers from another country than they would have felt if interacting in person. To prevent such results, Lawrence recommended involving learners in planning the collaboration, preparatory discussions to get them to notice culture in themselves and others, and an involved instructor to debrief students as they progress, with teacher and learners together becoming explorers of culture.

Most of these scholars conceptualize student diversity for global or international purposes by categorizing students as “domestic” or “home” and “international.” However, in one example, a business professor, working at a US liberal arts college where there were few international students, conceptualized diversity without any categories (Feng, 2016). For her, the task was about noticing and paying attention to difference, understanding one’s own response to difference, and then making a plan for strengthening one’s effectiveness in challenging interactions. She asked students to identify environments and individuals that might be so different they would be uncomfortable and would need to try out the intercultural competence skills they were studying. Following this, they were to develop experiential projects to do so. The students also used their own pre-course results on the Kozai Group’s Intercultural Effectiveness Scale to identify intercultural skills on which they wished to work. Feng met with students individually to help them plan and execute their experiential endeavors.

Pedagogies for courses dedicated to intercultural learning

A different category of classroom study is the courses in which the focus is entirely on an intercultural learning topic, allowing for in-depth treatment of a set of intercultural learning objectives. Deardorff and Arasaratnam-Smith (2017) offer a multi-country compendium of short, intercultural learning case studies that includes a number of examples focused specifically on classroom practices. Through these brief reports we see the alignment of intercultural learning theory with learning goals, course activities, and assessment tools. These courses engage students with notions of global citizenship more frequently than do the courses in the academic disciplines. Often, the courses are for elective credit; such courses, therefore, attract students who choose to take a course out of interest in the subject. A welcome feature of this collection is that a number of cases come from non-western universities.

Because these courses are about versions of GII competence, students can explore intercultural learning theory and practice in depth, examining such concepts as culture, cultural relativism, bias, empathy, and critical cultural awareness. Noteworthy in this group is the intercultural seminar developed by Almeida (2017), in which intercultural competence assessments at the beginning of the course were used to adapt the pedagogy according to individuals’ intercultural needs and developmental stages. Mertens and Van Maele (2017) set learning outcomes that asked students to become aware of cultural diversity within themselves, and then to construct their own theories of intercultural competence as they participated in course activities; after working inductively, students compared their analyses with expert theories.

Underlying principles for these courses are that students be introduced to a body of intercultural communication theory as a cognitive foundation, that they gain behavioral experience through simulations, projects in culturally diverse groups, or fieldwork in diverse settings, and that they are given reflective assignments on their own intercultural learning. The courses are often included in professional degree programs so the intercultural learning is contextualized to future professional practice: for example, establishing a trusting and therapeutic relationship with culturally diverse patients, working with interpreters, or examining how culture is expressed through language.

Learning Outcomes

In reporting the outcomes attributed to their innovations, researchers described successful or unsuccessful intercultural interactions in the classroom, levels of student satisfaction with GII activities, and changes in attitude or knowledge that indicated evidence of learning. The degree of student satisfaction served as one indicator of students’ openness to GII learning and, hopefully, of interest in pursuing GII capabilities beyond the course. Etherington (2014: 143) stated: “it seems that even the relatively minor interventions implemented in the present study are likely to support openness to intercultural interactions and the future development of intercultural competencies among students.” Several authors described the warmth, energy, and excitement in relation to interactive collaborations that they observed among students or which students reported in reflective essays (Deale, 2015; Ferreira et al., 2012; Grimes-MacLellan, 2015).

Among the myriad of GII competencies that have been identified by scholars (Deardorff, 2009), instructors could focus only on a small subset within the timeframe available for a single course. Often, they articulated broad notions about what GII learning outcomes should be and then fine-tuned their statements about learning outcomes once they saw what students could do. The following list presents a sample of outcomes reported. Students could:

describe what they had learned about another society or global issue (Etherington, 2014; Ferreira et al., 2012; Jin and Bennur, 2012);

self-report appreciation for the diversity in their groups and their increased awareness of different communicative styles (Reid and Garson, 2017);

give an oral presentation with attention to language usage and pace of speech that would be intelligible to an international audience (Etherington, 2014);

recognize the role of careful listening and patience to overcome a perceived language barrier (Edmead, 2013);

self-report trying to be more open-minded and less judgmental of people around them in their environment (Feng, 2016);

identify negative stereotypes and replace them with an accurate, favorable view (Shea et al., 2011).

Most authors judged that within the limited time span of a single course, students made modest gains in GII learning. This was true, especially when the interventions were only a small part of the course. Etherington (2014) asked students to name something intercultural they had learned at the end of the medical physiology course. Some 40% of domestic students could do so and 60% of international students could also do so. She judged this a good result given how limited the intercultural pedagogical intervention had been.

A window onto intercultural communication learning processes was provided by Grimes-MacLellan (2015), who spent time observing her students interact in their groups. She noticed how careful students were not to put each other on the spot and how, when some students took the initiative to share something from their culture, conversation would begin to flow. As the semester progressed, the groups were able to move from discussion of concrete to more abstract ideas. She noticed students following up on a point by asking questions of each other and turning to the quieter ones to ask if they had a similar experience or view. She found that students gradually became more attuned to seeking out differing points of view.

A tendency to dichotomize student status as domestic or international and the lack of attention to diversity within these categories is characteristic of most studies. The outcomes presented differentiate the experience and learning depending on whether a student is an international or domestic one. These categories draw attention to the position of those who are in a familiar educational environment, which they have mastered, and those who are new and perceived as visitors with less expertise. International students found the GII pedagogical interventions offered more opportunities to be heard and treated equally (Cruickshank et al., 2012; Edmead, 2013), whereas domestic students discovered a greater appreciation for language and culture differences although some domestic students continued to judge those who spoke English as a second language negatively (Ippolito, 2007; Turner, 2009). However, it is evident that the categories for defining learners’ needs and differentiated outcomes need to be more nuanced: these categories could be restated as students working in a second or third language, those who do or do not have prior intercultural learning experiences, and those who are adjusting to university or adjusting to a new educational culture, for example. It is also notable that this classroom study literature generally omits attention to domestic multiculturalism and the research literature on multicultural education with which it shares commonalities. In fact, Banks (1992) expressed a concern that global education hinders multicultural education; researchers studying multicultural and intercultural competence still, generally, do not cite each other’s work (Lieberman and Gamst, 2015).

Written reflective reports, essays, or journals in which students were assigned to analyze intercultural learning and group work experiences show other outcomes. Some writing was descriptive in nature without much reflection on the experience. More thoughtful examples demonstrated students’ increased confidence in contributions they made to their groups over time, reflections about becoming aware of the needs and viewpoints of others, new understandings of how discipline-related issues play out in other societies, and recognition of how they and their peers had overcome initial hesitancies to work together (Edmead, 2013; McGrath-Champ, 2013).

Outcomes assessment

Many studies report on one semester’s experience of new pedagogical interventions. As such, the authors themselves often note that their findings are provisional. Others were based on repeated iterations of a course with the pedagogical innovation (McGrath-Champ et al., 2013; Reid and Garson, 2017). Assessment methods included end-of-course customized surveys, observation of students in group discussion, analysis of video diaries, commercially prepared intercultural learning instruments given pre- and post-course, examination of writing assignments, reflective essays, or journals, and interviews with students individually or in focus groups. In general, a weakness of these studies is that they are short on details about the GII learning achieved by students as represented by the assessments.

Much of the assessment data reported are based on student surveys of their own sense of growth in intercultural awareness, with the limitation that the questions themselves may suggest the desired response. Daly et al. (2015), through end-of-term Likert scale surveys, found that students in the intervention group self-reported statistically significant greater awareness and understanding of cultural diversity than students in a control group with no GII learning intervention by a small to medium size effect. Another approach was to ask students short-answer questions about their GII learning that elicited brief responses in their own words. (Deale, 2015; Etherington, 2014; Knott et al., 2013).

Some investigators strengthened their assessments by using multiple tools with both direct and indirect methods. Several researchers used commercially prepared measurement instruments pre- and post-course, observing improvements in the overall scores, but not necessarily in all of the subscores. They also used additional direct assessments (Binder, 2017; Elnashar et al., 2017; Feng, 2016). Waldron (2017) is notable for his use of group observation. He observed positive group interactions in which every student listened respectfully and everyone was forthcoming in sharing views. However, he also observed dialogues that were dominated by the domestic students with international students silenced, during which inside jokes among friends excluded others, and subgroups retreated into interactions with those with whom they felt most comfortable. He followed up with assessment interviews that turned into learning moments as students self-reflected on what had gone wrong and how they could take more responsibility for inclusive dialogue in the future.

The most nuanced analyses of student learning or lack thereof came from participant interviews in which, despite intercultural learning preparation, students revealed difficulties. This was how instructors learned that students reacted negatively to communication challenges with second language speakers or that there was active resistance to interactions with others. It was also how the dynamics of interactive processes were most easily uncovered. McGrath-Champ et al. (2013) learned from interviews how teams overcame their perceived challenges by encouraging members to speak and take leadership roles; they gradually discovered they could give feedback to each other without causing offense. Using interviews in formative assessments allows students to take corrective action before the end of the course. One student discovered he was a poor listener; he sought opportunities to work on this problem and by the end of the semester was able to report a much improved attitude and enhanced skills in his role as a campus leader (Feng, 2016).

The short case studies about intercultural learning courses (Deardorff and Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017) are valuable for illustrating precisely how different instructors established alignment between the desired learning outcomes and the methods used to assess them. However, given their brevity, they do not provide details about the intercultural competencies students actually achieved and how the assessments documented such competencies. In addition, as with the other studies reviewed, we usually do not see if these courses fit into a larger program with repeated opportunities for intercultural learning and practice.

Linguistic GII competence and the role of culturally different intellectual traditions

There is a failure in most of these studies to address the role of language in intercultural communication in a multilingual, English-medium classroom constructively. Any in-depth discussion of language as a GII competence is usually reserved for the disciplines related to teaching foreign languages. In another separate body of research, foreign language learning specialists have theorized about intercultural learning during foreign language instruction (Byram, 1997; Kramsch, 2011; Risager, 2007). Intercultural competence now constitutes an important part of the learning outcomes in language pedagogies. However, an examination of the language issues in multilingual classrooms does not penetrate much of the broader literature on intercultural competence in higher education. A few scholars have considered how multilingual, sociolinguistic competence can be included in our conceptualization of pedagogies for GII competence (Jenkins, 2011; Krebs, 2018; Straight, 2009). To summarize briefly:

There are advocates for taking the position that when multiple versions of English are spoken, everyone has equal responsibility for communicative effectiveness (Jenkins, 2011). That means that native speakers of American and British English have just as much responsibility and need to acquire sociolinguistic skills as do English language learners, and speakers of national identity English (those in India and South Africa, for example). Pilot pedagogical efforts to create this awareness among British and Australian English native speaker students appear in two classroom studies (Edmead, 2013; Etherington, 2014).

Encouraging students to use any language they know in research and dialogue with other speakers of the same language enhances bilingual/multilingual students’ learning. It brings a wider body of knowledge to bear on a subject (Daryai-Hansen et al., 2017; García et al., 2011). Such multilingual practices provide everyone with experience in negotiating multilingual situations and some with a chance to serve as culture intermediaries, interpreting the information that not everyone can access. Among the classroom studies, Capobianco et al. (2018) described courses in which a cultures-and-languages-across-the-curriculum pedagogy encourages students to use the languages they know. Clarke (2005) made sure that materials in many languages were used in his course on justice and reconciliation, asking students to interpret the ideas they gleaned from these sources for their classmates.

Future research directions

The research and professional studies reviewed in this article demonstrate an evolution in thinking by scholars of international education about classroom pedagogical interventions. Moving beyond approaches that have focused only on curricular content and the inclusion of different perspectives, these pedagogies combine ideas of what students need to know about the world and the intercultural dimensions of specific disciplines with ideas about the awareness and skills they need for effective interaction with diverse others. However, the classroom studies also reveal cross-disciplinary fragmentation and isolation in scholarship. Arasaratnam-Smith (2017) has noted that scholarship about intercultural competence in different disciplines does not provide cross-references. These classroom studies also perpetuate an isolationist mentality in that they consider individual units of teaching and learning separately from the full flow of a curriculum. We do not see whether GII learning preceded or followed the students’ experiences in the courses described in the studies.

These gaps, just noted, make it difficult to determine the effectiveness of the pedagogical efforts considered here. To better understand impacts of GII pedagogies and guide future teaching and policy innovation, in the next section I consider three broad research areas for scholarly inquiry.

Examine alumni perspectives on GII competencies

To evaluate the effectiveness of GII learning for the long-term benefit of students, we need to understand the competencies our graduates use in the workplace and in their communities. Listening to their individual views on the intercultural knowledge and skills they use and how they acquired these through prior life experience, informal and formal education, and on-the-job experience would be very useful. How do they view their intercultural competence needs in their professions, communities, and families? Does a knowledge of intercultural communication theory make a difference to their self-perception of intercultural effectiveness and their decision-making processes as they select different behaviors from their repertoire in different situations? Juxtaposing this kind of data with an analysis of the intercultural competencies that supervisors, colleagues, and clients find valuable would help us specify the learning outcomes our degree programs should foster. This does not mean focusing only on an instrumental approach to competency, in the sense of thinking about what is needed for professional success; hopefully, we are talking about a holistic approach that includes the social and ethical wellbeing of everyone involved.

Investigate programmatic approaches to GII learning over the time span of a degree

If we believe that intercultural competence takes time to develop and is something that requires nurture and practice on an ongoing basis, then models of intercultural learning in a given course are insufficient (Jones and Killick, 2013; Leask, 2015). Research is needed in relation to degree programs that have embedded intercultural learning throughout. Piefer and Meyer-Lee (2017) report on such a program at Agnes Scott College. We still do not have an understanding of the progression of change in attitudes, knowledge, and skills that could enhance students’ GII capabilities over the time span of their degree program. Neither have we sufficiently articulated what the different GII capability levels from beginner through to advanced are. When programmatic GII learning projects are identified, it would be valuable to investigate the practices embedded throughout the program, benchmarks of learning outcomes assessed along the way, and the starting and end points of students’ learning and development.

Some classroom studies (Cruickshank et al., 2012; Daly et al., 2015; Edmead, 2013; Etherington, 2014; Knott et al., 2013) demonstrate the value of collaborative teaching for intercultural learning so that faculty who do not feel they have expertise in intercultural learning or communication can work with colleagues who do have that expertise in relation to curriculum design. Therefore, as research proceeds, it is important to examine the potential for partnering and collaborative teaching across disciplines and discuss examples of how actual classrom teaching is shared. Institutionally, higher education is not normally organized to foster such collaborations because teaching assignments are for a fixed number of individually taught courses. Can we identify models of scholarly culture and institutional administration to support fuller faculty collaboration?

In the research studies reviewed, there is often a failure to examine the GII experience that students bring with them and the competencies they have already achieved as starting points for their work on a program or course. An exception is the case studies of Almeida (2017) and Cruickshank et al. (2012), who used initial intercultural competence assessments to then adjust pedagogy. Further research could interrogate how students perceive prior GII experiences and how from the start of their degree program they leverage such expereince for GII learning. For students who come from backgrounds other than a mainstream one, it may be that they have values and behaviors that are viewed as interculturally appropriate in their social milieu but are not recognized as such when they cross cultures. Once students are on campus, some scholars have studied how informal experiences, co-curricular activities, and curricular experience together can foster intercultural competence (Leask, 2009; Soria, 2015). We need to better understand holistically the relationship between developing GII capabilities and students’ total university experience.

Strengthen research about classroom interventions for GII learning

In sum, the classroom studies reviewed do not give us enough information about the kinds and degrees of intercultural competencies students acquired. We continue to need strengthened articulation of specific learning goals and carefully aligned assessments with richer descriptions of competencies that are and are not achieved within the time span of a course.

For future classroom studies, a strengthening of research methodology is needed so that we have comparative data from before and after new pedagogical interventions are tried or from control groups. Hopefully, classroom interventions that test pedagogies would consider that all individuals are shaped by multiple identities and that there are opportunities for deployment of the languages known and being studied by students. We may be ready for some very different pedagogical approaches to be tested—pedagogies that combat our tendencies to “other,” are more dialogic and less argumentative in nature, allow an intercultural climate to emerge more gently, and encourage the instructor to be a mentor and coach (Fecho and Clifton, 2017; Killick, 2015; Lawrence, 2013; Waldron, 2017).

Conclusion

GII learning disrupts the traditional delivery of the curriculum in the university classroom. To insert it into an existing course can mean multiplying the learning outcome objectives, considering what GII dimensions will be addressed and their relationship to the academic discipline, reconsidering the relationship between content analysis/mastery and learning/communicative processes, and altering the role of the instructor so that he/she facilitates, monitors, and coaches students throughout the course. Such change may sound daunting, but there is evidence that even modest changes are valuable (Daly et al., 2015; Etherington, 2014; Killick, 2015).

With the accumulation of a significant body of literature about GII learning pedagogies, it is a good time to step back from current practice to seek new vantage points. In particular, we need to reflect on and understand the competencies individuals use in their adult lives and the journeys they have taken to acquire the insights and capabilities they have. In addition, we need to ponder and learn from the range of disciplinary perspectives and discourses that have not been in dialogue with each other. As we pursue a research agenda that embraces academic interdisciplinarity, sociolinguistic attentiveness, diverse intellectual traditions, and domestic multiculturalism, we can commit holistically to continuous, strong GII learning in our universities.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Katharine Krebs is a visiting scholar at the College of Community and Public Affairs at Binghamton University. Recently retired, she was formerly Vice Provost for International Affairs at Binghamton University. With over 30 years of experience in international education, she also worked at the University of Pennsylvania and the University at Albany. She has established international partnerships, joint degree programs, and study abroad programs in many countries around the world, most notably in the People’s Republic of China, Germany, Korea, Morocco, Turkey, South Africa, Spain, and the UK.

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