Building an Inclusive Campus: Developing Students’ Intercultural Competencies Through an Interreligious and Intercultural Diversity Program
Abstract
Post-secondary institutions are increasingly recognizing the need to foster intercultural competence (ICC) in students; however, the ways in which these institutions can do so has not been fully explored. The purpose of the current mixed methods study was to investigate changes in post-secondary students’ ICC (N = 35) following participation in an interreligious and intercultural diversity program, based upon changes in students’ scores on the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). A thematic analysis of post-program questionnaires was used to triangulate the data and provide more insight into changes experienced by participants. Quantitative results revealed significant increases in students’ overall ICC, and significant decreases in the discrepancy between students’ perceived ICC and their actual ICC. Qualitative results revealed five overall themes: (1) shifting perspectives, (2) enhancing intercultural engagement skills, (3) connecting, (4) inspiring action, and (5) personal growth. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Metrics
Published
2018-12-31
Issue
Section
Articles
DOI
License
Copyright in the article is vested with the Author under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
