Intercultural Competence Development through the Global Awareness Program at the University of Kansas

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand whether undergraduate students develop intercultural competence through domestic, co-curricular international and intercultural programming. This evaluative case study focuses on students who did not study abroad and earned the Global Awareness Program (GAP) certificate at the University of Kansas (KU). Byram's 1997 definition of intercultural competence provided the conceptual framework for this study. Informed by this definition, my working definition of intercultural competence includes the following components: knowledge of one's own and other cultures, the ability to understand differences between and among cultures, skills to interact effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds, and attitudes of open-mindedness and empathy toward people from different countries and cultures. Using a rubric devised from Byram's definition of intercultural competence and open-coding of the essays, several themes emerged from the data: types activities (interactive or passive), increased knowledge, understanding of diversity within cultures, feelings of empathy, feelings of gratitude, expression of open-mindedness, future goals, imperative of international and intercultural studies, cultural comparison, and regions of the world. Although many of the themes reflected components of intercultural competence, the analysis of the students' GAP portfolios revealed that only a very small number of students showed strong evidence of intercultural competence development. It seems to suggest that administrators in the KU Office of International Programs should consider limiting passive activities which do not elicit reflection, changing essay requirements to invite more reflection, and explore why so few students who do not study abroad take advantage of the GAP.