How College Students Experience Intercultural Learning ... · How College Students Experience Intercultural Learning: Key Features and Approaches Patricia M. King, Rosemary J. Perez,

How College Students Experience Intercultural Learning:Key Features and Approaches

Patricia M. King, Rosemary J. Perez, and Woo-jeong ShimUniversity of Michigan

Many colleges and universities in the United States aim to promote interculturalcompetence in their students. However, most research on this outcome has focused onthe content of educational programs (what educators offer) rather than on how studentsexperience intercultural learning. This qualitative inquiry from the Wabash NationalStudy analyzed 207 intercultural experiences from 161 college students on 6 campusesto identify contexts, characteristics, and key features of how they experience intercul-tural learning. Using grounded theory approaches, we summarized student interviewsover 2 years, conducted open and axial coding to identify themes, and evaluated thethemes over time. Using this approach, we identified three major themes: (a) thatintercultural learning occurred when students directly encountered others’ experiences;(b) that feeling safe enough to explore cultural differences was a key dimension ofintercultural learning; and (c) that students used a variety of approaches that led tointercultural learning (from simply listening or watching to exploring how one’spersonal identity related to intercultural understanding) and that these varied in degreeof complexity and agency. Implications for practice are offered to help educators makedecisions about how to promote intercultural effectiveness in collegiate settings.

Keywords: intercultural effectiveness, intercultural learning, college students, higher education

Scholars have consistently argued that highereducation in the United States should preparestudents for participation in a diverse demo-cratic society (Bowen, 1999; Gurin, Nagda, &Lopez, 2004; Nussbaum, 2002) and have calledon institutions to produce culturally competentcitizens. The need for colleges and universitiesto foster the development of intercultural com-petency has increased as higher education andmarket economies have internationalized (Dear-dorff, 2004; Hayward, 2000). In addition,

changing demographics in the United Stateshave led college educators to focus on helpingstudents acquire the knowledge and skills nec-essary to navigate an increasingly connectedand diverse global society to succeed in the 21stcentury.Research on the development of intercultural

competency has focused heavily on the educa-tional practices and conditions that foster inter-cultural learning, such as diversity courses(Mayhew & Fernandez, 2007), study abroadprograms (Lee, 2012; Medina-López-Portillo,2004; Pedersen, 2010; Williams, 2005), and in-tergroup dialogue experiences (Engberg, 2004;Gurin, Dey, Hurtado, & Gurin, 2002). This richbody of research suggests that educational in-terventions can play a critical role in helpingstudents increase their knowledge of other cul-tures, their cross-cultural sensitivity, and theircapacities for intercultural communication anddecrease their prejudice against others.Taken together, these studies have made a

significant contribution in documenting the ed-ucational benefits of diversity and in illuminat-ing several factors that contribute to changes instudents’ capacities for intercultural compe-

Patricia M. King, Rosemary J. Perez, and Woo-jeongShim, Center for the Study of Higher and PostsecondaryEducation, School of Education, University of Michigan.A draft of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting

of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Indi-anapolis, IN, November 20, 2010.This project was funded by the Center of Inquiry in the

Liberal Arts at Wabash College. We gratefully acknowledgethe sponsorship of the Wabash National Study of LiberalArts Education and the support of the National Center forInstitutional Diversity at the University of Michigan.Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-

dressed to Patricia M. King, 2117 School of EducationBuilding, 610 E. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Diversity in Higher Education © 2013 National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education2013, Vol. 6, No. 2, 69–83 1938-8926/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0033243

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tency. However, in addition to documentingwhat changes occur as a result of such educa-tional interventions, we need to more closelyexamine how these changes occur (the mecha-nisms of intercultural education). Qualitativeinquiry is particularly well suited to investigat-ing the process and the quality of interculturallearning. In particular, studies that examine abroad span of collegiate intercultural experi-ences may add to our understanding of howstudents learn as well as the conditions of theirlearning. With such information, educators maybetter understand the dynamics and mecha-nisms underlying intercultural learning.To address the need for studies that examine

the process of intercultural learning, this re-search analyzes college students’ interculturalexperiences to better understand how studentslearn to be interculturally effective. Toward thisend, we sought to identify characteristics andkey features of students’ intercultural experi-ences for clues about the nature of the develop-ment of this educational outcome. Our guidingquestion was, “What do these experiences tellus about the development of intercultural effec-tiveness?” Ultimately, our goal is to provide amore nuanced description of the qualities ofthese experiences that will help educators makedecisions about how to promote interculturaleffectiveness in collegiate settings.

Intercultural Effectiveness

Although scholars widely agree that highereducation should foster the development of cul-turally competent citizens, there is no consensusabout what constitutes intercultural effective-ness (Deardorff, 2006; Hannigan, 1990). Anearly conception of intercultural effectivenessby Hammer, Gudykunst, and Wiseman (1978)suggested that the construct was comprised ofthree dimensions: (a) the ability to deal withpsychological stress, (b) the ability to commu-nicate effectively, and (c) the ability to establishinterpersonal relationships. Although this defi-nition stressed skills, subsequent efforts to char-acterize intercultural effectiveness described abroader array of knowledge, skills, and atti-tudes. For example, van der Zee and van Oud-enhoven (2000) characterized intercultural ef-fectiveness as a construct composed of fivecomponents: (a) open-mindedness, (b) culturalempathy, (c) emotional stability, (d) flexibility,

and (e) social initiative. In contrast, Stone(2006) described intercultural effectiveness asbeing composed of emotional intelligence, cul-tural knowledge, motivation, openness, resil-ience, reflectiveness, sensitivity, and skills (e.g.,in oral communication).Deardorff (2006) also envisioned intercul-

tural effectiveness as a multidimensional con-struct that she conceptualized as a pyramid forwhich the base is comprised of individual atti-tudes such as respect, openness, curiosity, anddiscovery. She argued that if one’s base atti-tudes are strong, then one has an increasedcapacity to develop and comprehend knowledgeneeded to interact with diverse others (e.g., cul-tural self-awareness, deep understanding ofknowledge and culture, culture specific infor-mation, sociolinguistic awareness). With in-creased knowledge and understanding, one mayachieve the desired internal outcomes of inter-cultural interactions that include adaptability,flexibility, ethnorelativity, and empathy. Ulti-mately, the internal outcomes described byDeardorff are necessary for one to reach one’sdesired external outcomes, to behave and com-municate in a manner that allows one to achieveone’s stated goals.As these approaches show, conceptions of

intercultural effectiveness vary; further, theycontinue to evolve. For the purposes of thisstudy, we defined intercultural effectiveness as“knowledge of cultures and cultural practices(one’s own and others’), complex cognitiveskills for decision making in intercultural con-texts, social skills to function effectively in di-verse groups, and personal attributes that in-clude flexibility and openness to new ideas”(King, Kendall Brown, Lindsay, & VanHecke,2007, p. 5). We chose this definition to capturethe knowledge, attitudinal, and behavioral com-ponents that we believe comprise interculturaleffectiveness.

Theoretical Framing

In this study, we used a grounded theoryapproach in the tradition of Corbin and Strauss(1990), drawing on previously existing theoryand research to inform our understanding of ourdata. Two theoretical frameworks (describednext) primed our thinking as we coded our data.Allport’s (1954) groundbreaking work ana-

lyzing conditions of positive intergroup interac-

70 KING, PEREZ, AND SHIM

tions has led to many subsequent insights abouthow people learn to deal with different others(Gaertner, Dovidio, & Bachman, 1996; Petti-grew, 1998; Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe,& Robb, 1997). These conceptual refinementshave been applied to diversity education effortsthat foster critical self-reflection and perspec-tive taking, especially in the context of inter-group dialogue programs (Gurin et al., 2004;Maxwell, Nagda, & Thompson, 2010; Nagda,2006; Nagda & Zuniga, 2003). Such programsalso promote the development of empathy(Stephan & Findlay, 1999), including cognitiveand affective empathy (Duan & Hill, 1996;Gladstein, 1983).The intercultural maturity model (King &

Baxter Magolda, 2005) is grounded in the Pi-agetian tradition of constructive developmental-ism. This model is a synthesis of clusters ofstudent development theories organized accord-ing to Kegan’s (1994) three dimensions of de-velopment (cognitive, intrapersonal, and inter-personal), and it maps out changes in elementsof intercultural maturity across dimensions anddevelopmental levels of self-authorship. An ad-vanced level of intercultural maturity is charac-terized by capacities such as being able to usemultiple cultural frames, integrate aspects ofself into one’s identity, and engage in interde-pendent relations with diverse others.Given our grounded approach, we did not

explicitly code our data in a manner that directlyapplied concepts from intercultural contact the-ory or the intercultural maturity model. How-ever, our understanding of both frameworkssensitized our thinking as we explored the na-ture of intercultural effectiveness and its devel-opment. We discuss these models and otherliterature on intercultural learning after report-ing our findings.

Method

This study draws on qualitative data from theWabash National Study of Liberal Arts Educa-tion (WNS), which examines institutional prac-tices and student experiences that are related togrowth on seven collegiate outcomes and self-authorship. This current inquiry focuses on theintercultural effectiveness outcome (King et al.,2007, defined above) as revealed through stu-dent interviews.

Sample

In-depth interviews were conducted with stu-dents attending six colleges and universitiesparticipating in the qualitative portion of theWNS. These institutions included four smallliberal arts colleges, one midsized and one largeuniversity; two are Hispanic-serving institu-tions, and one enrolls approximately 50% Afri-can American and 50% White students. In thefall of 2006 (hereafter, Year 1), 315 interviewparticipants were initially selected from amongfirst-year, traditional age students in the quanti-tative sample, oversampling students of color inorder to increase the likelihood of obtaining aracially diverse sample. As shown in Table 1,1

about one third of these students identified asAfrican American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Is-landers (20–33 per group), or as multiracial(n � 9); the remainder identified as White; 54%were female. Approximately 6% were born incountries other than the United States. The par-ticipants were recontacted annually for 4 years;228 were interviewed again in the fall of 2007(Year 2) and 204 in the fall of 2008 (Year 3).The analytic sample used for this study is de-scribed below.

Data Collection and Analysis

Trained interviewers conducted one-on-one,semistructured interviews that lasted 60 to 90minutes; these were audiorecorded and tran-scribed verbatim. The WNS interview (BaxterMagolda & King, 2007) was structured to elicitinformation relevant to educational experiencesstudents regard as important and how they makemeaning (Kegan, 1994) about these experi-ences. The interview was semistructured in na-ture; it gave participants maximum freedom toidentify relevant content yet guided them totouch on varied domains of their educationalexperiences that were deemed to foster growthon the seven learning outcomes and self-authorship. Participants received a stipend of$30 for each interview.

1 As Renn (2003) has noted, the information individualschoose to share about their social identities may differacross contexts and over time. We found this as well. Theinformation provided here reflects what students shared inthe context of the annual interviews, and, thus, reflectsdetails not available for earlier publications.

71INTERCULTURAL LEARNING

Because the Year 1 interviews primarily de-scribed students’ entering characteristics, thedata used here are drawn from the Year 2 and 3interviews. A multistep approach was used fordata analysis; these steps are summarized inTable 2. The first step was for trained researchteam members to create an interview summaryfor each student, working from the completetranscript. The summary included (among otherelements) each experience the student identifiedas important, its effect (i.e., what the studentlearned from the experience), and the outcomeassociated with this learning (here, interculturaleffectiveness), using illustrative quotes to sup-port these observations. (See Baxter Magoldaand King, 2012, for a detailed description.)Next, we selected the analytic sample of in-

tercultural experiences, using the criterion that

the experience fell within the domain of inter-cultural effectiveness as defined above. Theseexperiences included students’ accounts of theirlearning about cultural identities and practices,such as those based on race, ethnicity, religion,gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic sta-tus, ability, and national origin. By contrast,experiences demonstrating students’ awarenessof individual personality differences were notselected for this sample since they were notaligned with the cultural (i.e., collective) iden-tities or traits. This review yielded 207 experi-ences reported as relevant to the interculturaleffectiveness outcome (out of a total of 1,625important experiences). Of the intercultural ex-periences, 120 (58%) were reported by 87 par-ticipants from Year 2, and the reminder (87experiences) were reported by 73 participants

Table 1Demographic Characteristics of the Interview Sample

Sample Female Male Total

African American 24 (8%) 9 (3%) 33 (10%)Asian American/Pacific Islanders 11 (3%) 9 (3%) 20 (6%)Hispanic Americana 16 (5%) 11 (3%) 27 (9%)White American 102 (32%) 105 (33%) 207 (66%)Multiracial American 7 (2%) 2 (1%) 9 (3%)International students 10 (3%) 9 (3%) 19 (6%)Total 170 (54%) 145 (46%) 315 (100%)

a We use the term Hispanic here since that the term was used in the original survey.

Table 2Summary of Steps in the Analytic Process and Resulting Themes

Steps Comments–explanation

1. Summarize interviews Research team members identified important experiencesthrough completion of WNS Phase 1 summaries (n � 1,625)

2. Select analytic sample of intercultural experiences Criterion: Experiences were in the domain of interculturaleffectiveness (n � 207)

3. Open coding of intercultural experiences for eachcampus context

Identification of 6 sets of thematic codes per institution

4. Axial coding across campus contexts Identification of three cross-institutional themes:1. Encountering others’ experiences during intercultural learning2. A sense of safety as a mediator to exploring interculturaldifferences

3. Approaches to participating in intercultural experiences(a) Listen and observe(b) Compare and contrast ideas(c) Engage in personal reflection(d) Explore personal identity as it relates to intercultural

understanding(e) Empathize with others

5. Compare themes across years No time-related themes were found


from Year 3. These 160 students were fromacross all six institutions, 54 (34%) of whomwere students of color or identified as multira-cial, and 12 (8%) were international students.

Data Analysis

A grounded theory approach in the traditionof Corbin and Strauss (1990) was used to de-velop our codes, categories, and patterns acrossstudents’ accounts of their intercultural experi-ences. Initially, two of us used the guiding ques-tion noted above and independently conductedan open coding of students’ intercultural expe-riences for each institution to reflect institution-specific features. We then discussed their pre-liminary codes and categories for each institu-tion, clarified criteria and rationales used, andresolved differences to consensus; this processyielded six sets of thematic codes (one set perinstitution).Next, two of us conducted axial coding to

regroup the institutional codes into overarchingcategories that captured students’ interculturalexperiences. We then discussed the core cate-gories that emerged from this analytic step, re-solving differences to consensus, and refinedthe categories to illustrate themes and patternsregarding the contexts of students’ interculturalexperiences and their approaches to intercul-tural learning. Lastly, we compared emergentthemes and categories across Years 2 and 3 tolook for possible time-relevant patterns. Theemergent themes did not cluster by year buteffectively captured the data across both years.The findings reported below describe thethemes and patterns that emerged from the dataacross institutions as well as across years. Dur-ing every step of the analysis, a constant com-parative method was used (Charmaz, 2006; Gla-ser, 1965); this involved constantly comparingdata with data, data with codes, and codes withother codes, leading to a consolidated set ofthemes and patterns grounded in the data.As research team members, we are aware that

our own positionalities likely affected ourresponse to how we perceived intercultural ex-periences. We are three women who share acommitment to promoting intercultural effec-tiveness among college students, and we bringcollective experience working with students inclassroom and cocurricular settings. Yet ourvantage points are distinct and have been

shaped by our experiences navigating intercul-tural experiences. The first author is foreignborn and of European descent, while the secondauthor is a second generation Filipina Americanwho was raised in a predominantly White com-munity in the Midwest. The third author is aninternational student from South Korea who hasextensive experience negotiating the dynamicsbetween the home and host cultures in whichshe is immersed. We view the diversity amongthe authors as an advantage in that it sensitizedus to a range of experiences and perspectivesthat were manifested within the data. Our diver-sity also contributed to the development oftrustworthiness during data analysis.

Establishing Trustworthiness

We took several steps to establish trustwor-thiness of our study. First, we provided inten-sive interviewer training to understand thepurpose of the interview and the interviewprotocol, and an analysis of interviewer sub-jectivities and how they might affect the in-terview. All interviewers practiced using theinterviews with undergraduates and receivedfeedback. Ultimately, our rigorous trainingprocess promoted dependability (Guba, 1981;Krefting, 1991) during data collection andfostered consistency in the interview processacross team members.Second, the interview itself began by build-

ing rapport during the first part of the inter-view to encourage participants to authenti-cally share their experiences; the high returnrate of 89.5% between Years 2 and 3 suggeststhat participants were comfortable with theinterview. To build on this trust, we attemptedto assign the same interviewer over time forcontinuity and gave participants the opportu-nity to give feedback about the interview pro-cess at the conclusion of each interview. Al-though we did not formally engage in memberchecking (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), we offeredcopies of the transcripts, and invited partici-pants to clarify transcription errors and toprovide additional comments. Across trustbuilding strategies, we enhanced the credibil-ity of our research through prolonged engage-ment (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) with the par-ticipants: The individual interviews typicallylasted over an hour, and students were inter-viewed annually.


Third, training comparable to that of theinterviewers was provided for the summariz-ers. Fourth, we systematically drew on theperspectives of multiple researchers to estab-lish plausible explanations during every stepof data analysis. Multiple researchers re-viewed the original summaries (and returnedto the transcripts as needed), were involved inanalytic processes, and reviewed the themes.Through triangulation of investigators (Knafl& Breitmayer, 1989; Krefting, 1991), the in-terpretations were confirmed and reconfirmedover time as more analyses were completed.

Study Limitations

Despite our care in design and attempts toenhance trustworthiness, our work has its limi-tations. In particular, our sample is limited tostudents from a small number of institutions thatwere chosen for their work in promoting liberalarts education, not intercultural effectiveness;this outcome may or may not have been empha-sized on these campuses. (An advantage of thissampling, however, is this sample was notdrawn from those who had already expressed aninterest in intercultural issues or programs, andwho therefore might have been predisposed tolearn about different cultures.) Further, our dataset is limited to experiences that students foundmemorable enough to mention and chose toshare; these may reflect experiences that aredistinct in unknown ways, such as those thatwere salient to their own social identities (e.g.,race, gender, sexual orientation) or issues theywere already exploring.

Findings

Our review of these 207 experiences pro-vides insights into the nature of college ex-periences relevant to how students learn in-tercultural effectiveness. More specifically,these narratives revealed the nature of con-texts where students participated in intercul-tural learning, how they felt during and aftertheir intercultural experiences, and the man-ner in which they were engaged during inter-cultural experiences. We identified three ma-jor themes within these narratives, describedbelow.

Encountering Others’ Experiences DuringIntercultural Learning

Our data revealed that students had opportu-nities to engage in intercultural learning acrossmultiple contexts and that exposure to others’experiences was often a powerful learning ex-perience. Experiences as varied as academiccourses, study abroad trips, service-learningprograms, and club activities and friendships allserved as fertile ground for meaningful intercul-tural experiences. Regardless of where the ex-perience was situated, students described beingenraptured by hearing others’ stories and ob-serving their experiences because they allowedthem to see the world and to make sense ofsocial issues through another’s eyes.Many students acknowledged that differ-

ences in perspectives were rooted in people’slife experiences and social backgrounds. Ac-knowledging the truth in others’ voices, stu-dents used these stories to gain an insider’s viewof other cultures, as Joan, a White woman, didin her religion class:

I understood why they [Muslims] did some of thethings the way they did. The hijab was always, “Whyare the women covering their heads?” That doesn’tmake any sense to me. In the class they told us whythey did it, so I was like, “Okay. Now that makessense.” So you do go through and discuss things andgo, “Okay, now I have a better understanding of whatthat is.”

Insiders’ views provided contextualized de-scriptions of why and how people engaged inspecific cultural practices. For Joan, hearingdirectly from others helped her believe the sto-ries and gain a deeper understanding of Muslimreligious beliefs and practices.In some cases, students were exposed to oth-

ers’ culturally based experiences as they builtrapport and developed a sense of trust withintheir relationships. Juliana, an African Ameri-can woman, translated legal documents duringan immersion service project and came to betterunderstand the lives of immigrant workers afterhearing their stories. Here, she described whatshe took away from conversations:

They’re still going to tell you how they came to thecountry and what they do now and why they work here. . . . A lot of people say, “Well, I’m educated. I wentto the university in Mexico, but I’m not proficient inEnglish. I have children. I can’t go back to school. Idon’t have any money.” One of the saddest things to


me is that a lot of times there’s this huge disconnectbetween communities, especially Latino community orespecially communities where they don’t speak Eng-lish. . . . Just thinking of those hurdles really made meunderstand of how fortunate I am to be a citizen . . .and how much they’re willing to, in so many ways,lose a part of themselves to become an American, tocome to America. . . . I thought that the biggest thingwas that if you don’t have vocal power, you don’t havea huge resource for change.

Juliana’s command of Spanish allowed her tohear firsthand the challenges immigrant workersexperienced as people who have less privilegein American society. Listening to these voiceshelped her understand immigrants’ experiencesand led her to be more passionate about immi-gration issues; it also motivated her to improveher language skills to be able to communicatedirectly with this group. Juliana’s heightenedsensitivity to these issues also made her moreaware of her position of privilege based on herAmerican citizenship.Sometimes others’ voices were not overt but

became apparent when students were directlyobserving different cultures in the context ofimmersion trips, service learning projects, orfield trips. As outsiders, students had the abilityto watch and attend to others’ experiences,which piqued their curiosity about other cul-tures. In particular, students expressed interestin others’ daily routines because they often dif-fered from their own customs. For instance,Quinn, a White male, took an immersion trip toOaxaca where he got a chance to live with ahost family and immersed himself in their cul-tural practices. He found the differences be-tween his host’s family structure and his ownespecially interesting:

Just living in a family was so different than what Ithought of as family. When I think of family, I think ofmy own family and the crazy, wacky funness that theyare. Almost every night the entire family was over,grandparents, uncles, aunts, great aunts, great uncles,nieces, nephews, grandchildren . . . . It was so differ-ent. Really opening up what it means to be a family.And different economic dependencies that I take forgranted. I take for granted that I have hot water to takea shower. . . . I take for granted electricity. I take forgranted the fact that I can go protest in the street and noone’s going to arrest me or shoot at me for it, and that’snot something I want to take for granted in the world.I knew that, but I didn’t experience it. That wasimportant.

Witnessing his host family’s interactions pro-vided Quinn with a different image of family

and an expanded understanding of how socialsystems can be organized. Although Quinndidn’t report having directly heard others’ tes-timonies, he used observed images of life tocreate stories, which he then compared and con-trasted to his own experiences and viewpoints.This cognitive exercise prompted him to reflecton what he had taken for granted, and seeinghow others lived provoked him to examine hisown values, beliefs, and assumptions aboutwhat a life should be and how people shouldlive their lives. Ultimately, witnessing others’lived experiences led Quinn to a richer under-standing of culture and to greater awareness ofthe complexities of cultural norms and systems.

A Sense of Safety as a Mediator toExploring Intercultural Differences

Our analysis of students’ narratives revealedthat students’ emotional reactions within a par-ticular educational context played a critical rolein shaping their perceptions of intercultural ex-periences and, subsequently, how they chose toengage in such experiences with others. Regard-less of how the experience was structured,whether or not students felt safe during an ex-perience played a central role in determiningtheir emotional responses as well as their degreeof willingness to engage with and learn from theexperience. In effect, feeling safe to learn and toexplore mediated students’ willing participationin experiences that promoted the developmentof intercultural effectiveness.Many students perceived an adequate degree

of support within their environment. In responseto feeling safe, participants tended to feel in-creasingly open to exploring differences andwere more willing to engage in interculturallearning. For example, Leo, a White student atan all-male college, shared his experience dis-cussing gender issues in class with his peers:

[In my] Men and Masculinity class, we brought up a lotof interesting things as far as just your typical mascu-line things and what’s wrong with that and what’s goodabout that. . . . You think about the typical things ofmasculinity: Men don’t cry. Men don’t show emotions.Men are stronger than women. Those are all yourtypical stereotypical views, and we cut into those alittle bit and looked at what’s wrong with this? Whatmakes us different that we don’t have emotions? Be-cause we do. And then when we start to dig into it, welook at what toll does that take on us? I don’t try tokeep anything inside . . . I mean it’s not weak to dealwith your emotion. I think it’s weak when you just try


to push them in and just forget about them and I thinkit’s harmful. So we did a lot of that kind of stuff.

Because the course was within a close-knit,single-gendered environment, Leo perceivedthe space as one where it was permissible tothink about the ways in which being male hasaffected his worldview. Engaging in a criticalexamination of gender norms ultimately helpedhim realize that some notions of masculinity arelimiting. Moreover, Leo expressed a willing-ness to challenge the definition of being a manand described expressing his emotions despitebeing socialized not to do so.In contrast to Leo, several participants de-

scribed experiences where they perceived theenvironment to be unwelcoming or unsafe forrespectful intercultural experiences and in re-sponse, felt disappointment, isolation, and an-ger. Alex is one of these students and relayedfeeling extreme discomfort based on his inter-actions with the instructor of his Mexican his-tory class:

I actually felt kind of bad to be a Hispanic student thatday. Because first of all, I am the last generation of myfamily to not know Spanish, which is okay. I’m finewith that. But this professor was a light-skinned His-panic fellow. And he expected everybody in this classto know Spanish, which I didn’t . . . So I felt reallybizarre in that class, just because of that fact that heexpected you to know something purely because ofyour nationality. So I felt very strange in that class.

When the professor made incorrect assump-tions about how Alex connected with his ethnicidentity, this turned a space that was initiallyassumed to be safe into one that was uncom-fortable and contentious. After experiencingdiscomfort and alienation, Alex eventuallywithdrew from the class and expressed a de-creased desire to learn about Mexican history ifthe expectations for him were raised based onhis ethnicity.

Approaches to Participating inIntercultural Experiences

Once students felt a sense of safety and de-cided to willingly participate in interculturalexperiences, they took a number of differentapproaches to understanding the interculturaldifferences at hand. Our analysis highlightedfive approaches that students frequently used,namely, (a) listen and observe, (b) compare andcontrast ideas, (c) engage in personal reflection,

(d) explore personal identity as it relates tointercultural understanding, and (e) empathizewith others. These approaches display varyingdegrees of complexity as well as agency withwhich students engage their minds and theirhearts. Notably, the practices deployed wereoften spontaneous rather than intentionally en-acted by students regardless of the context oftheir intercultural experience.

Listen and observe. The listen and ob-serve approach was frequently used when stu-dents initially encountered differences. Duringcontact experiences, numerous participantsnoted that they responded by paying close at-tention to others and the environment as ameans of gaining a rudimentary understandingof intercultural differences. When this approachwas used, students indicated that they becamemore aware of cultural differences, started tosee different dimensions of identity, and beganto understand people as being more complexthan they had previously thought. Here, Penny,a White woman, describes watching a paganceremony as part of a course:

Before that ceremony it was like, “They worship thedevil. It’s all evil.” Now I know they worship nature,not the devil. I do have a different perspective that Iprobably wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t witnessed it.She [the instructor] kind of went over it to let us decidewhether we wanted to or not participate. So if I hadn’thad that discussion, I think I would have still looked atthem [pagans] like, “You’re evil.”. . . I like being ableto look at things differently.

Penny indicated that “witnessing” increasedher cultural knowledge and changed her nega-tive perceptions of pagan practices. However,listen and observe as an approach tended to bemore reactive than proactive in that its primaryaim was to acquire information in an unfamiliarsituation and did not elicit students’ previousknowledge to explore differences and diversity.

Compare and contrast ideas. Studentswho used the compare and contrast approachmoved beyond simply absorbing information tocarefully examining it in comparison to theirown background and life experiences. It is in-teresting that students tended to use compareand contrast to interpret their experiences afterrather than during interactions across culturaldifferences, as though doing so required morespace or time. They also leveraged this ap-proach to find connections between their cul-tural background and those of others to alleviate


feelings of discomfort. For example, Diana de-scribed her experience being the only AfricanAmerican in an Asian American history coursethat was composed predominantly of AsianAmerican and Pacific Islander students:

I felt like a minority, but not so much because while. . . it’s [history] from an Asian American perspective,they also went through the slave trade and all thosethings. The class talked about Hawaii and the planta-tions and it was like, “Oh, these people went throughthe same things that my ancestors did.” And so it waskind of okay. I’ll get a kinship, a connection, and that’swhy I learned a lot of things I didn’t know before. Ididn’t know about Filipinos and how they were lookedat when they came over to the States and differentthings. I just felt [that] even though we were fromdifferent ancestors, we were all the same, because wewent through the same. Our ancestors went through thesame struggle.

Diana initially described feeling out of placein class since she was the only African Ameri-can student, but felt a “kinship” with her AsianAmerican peers after comparing and contrastingthe their cultural histories, especially theirstruggles related to legacies of slavery and ra-cial stigmatization. Thus, the compare-and-contrast approach seems to be more complexthan the listen-and-observe approach because itmoved students from surface-level understand-ing of a culture (i.e., what is going on) to seeingthe core of cultural histories, representations,and practices (i.e., how and why it is so).Notably, several students who exercised the

compare-and-contrast approach also foundthemselves reevaluating stereotypes after tryingto understand the genesis of cultural differencesand culturally embedded ideas. After reconsid-ering stereotypes, some students began to seepeople as multidimensional and more complexthan the caricatures associated with stereotypes.When stereotypes were intentionally examined,participants were more critical of ideas andstarted to see culture as enacted rather than as astatic artifact.

Engage in personal reflection. Some par-ticipants described continuing to engage in per-sonal reflection after participating in an inter-cultural experience. Notably, few of theseopportunities for reflection were part of an in-stitutional practice; rather, students createdspace to think about their intercultural experi-ences more deeply as they attempted to makesense of them. Students often used reflection todetermine where new information and perspec-

tives fit in with their previous experiences, val-ues, and beliefs. For example, Rae, a Whitewoman, participated in a semester-long work-shop on racism that challenged her to thinkabout her own identity, her interactions with herAfrican American boyfriend, and her under-standing of the dynamics of race. Here, shedescribes how her engagement in the experienceunfolded:

[The workshop] basically taught me that there’s actu-ally real [race] issues that people deal with every daythat you can’t get rid of, nor would you even want toat some point. . . . But I think about it a lot because indaily life, dealing with my boyfriend and trying towork out . . . what is an okay way to act. It doesn’tfreeze me up as much as it did before, but it definitelyis still a factor in everything that I do every day almost,which is crazy.

After participating in the workshop, Raereadily connected her learning in the workshopto her daily experiences. As she began to thinkmore about how privilege manifests itselfwithin the context of interracial relationships,Rae considered ways in which she could createand maintain a respectful relationship with herboyfriend. Ultimately, continued reflection andunderstanding the impact of racism on othersshe cared about provided what she characterizesas a powerful learning experience. In this re-gard, personal reflection as an approach to in-tercultural experiences is more agentic andcomplex than the prior two approaches becausestudents willingly created space to ruminate andbegan to reconsider the meaning of their cul-tural background and life experiences.

Explore personal identity. For some stu-dents, intercultural experiences led to explora-tions of personal identity. Like engaging in per-sonal reflection, this approach is also agentic,but uses one’s personal background as an ingre-dient to fuel one’s desire to learn rather than asa frame of reference. Participants who chose tolook inward and explore their cultural heritageoften craved knowledge and a greater sense ofconnection to a specific dimension of their iden-tity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orien-tation). As a result of engaging in this process,students described feeling a sense of pride andownership over how they defined themselves.For example, Daniel came to identify as Fili-pino American and changed the way he under-stood his cultural identity and heritage aftertaking a leadership position in the Filipino stu-


dent association on his campus. His strong feel-ings of connection to his ethnic heritage led himto explore issues germane to members of theFilipino community. In particular, he felt a dutyto give voice to Filipino American veterans,whose plight had long been ignored:

It’s important to me because my grandmother’s broth-ers were part of that group of veterans who didn’t getreimbursed [after World War II] and . . . I went to SanFrancisco and fed the homeless and I noticed a lot ofthe homeless people there are Filipino American vet-erans . . .. So when they [Filipino American veterans]came back, they had nothing to go to, so they just liveon the streets now. That’s another reason why I joinedthe [Filipino student] organization because it struck anote in me. I mean it called to me when they reintro-duced this issue [Filipino American veteran compen-sation] to me.

Ultimately, Daniel’s strong connection to hisFilipino American identity compelled him toengage in service projects and political advo-cacy initiatives that were intended to benefitFilipino American World War II veterans. Dan-iel’s exploration of his ethnic identity subse-quently fostered a sense of agency that allowedhim act on behalf of other Filipino Americans.

Empathize with others. The final ap-proach we saw from students when engaging inintercultural experiences was an effort to empa-thize with others. This approach was the mostcomplex of the group because it includes bothcognitive and emotional dimensions (Gladstein,1983) and engaged students across both dimen-sions. Cognitive empathy is similar to perspec-tive taking in that both involve trying to under-stand someone else’s experience, often from theperspective of the other’s identity. In addition,emotional empathy includes the generation orexpression of feelings that are similar to ormade in response to another person’s emotions.We found that when an emotional response waselicited, cognitive empathy had first occurred.Moreover, students who were most affected bythe use of empathy were those who allowedthemselves to both think about and feel in re-sponse to interacting with people who weredifferent from them.Notably, in addition to emerging as one of

five approaches for navigating intercultural ex-periences, empathy was also an outcome ofencounters across differences in social identi-ties. As students attempted to understand others,they often gained an increased appreciation forothers’ cultural backgrounds and in some cases,

felt more connected with them. For instance,Owen, a White male, went on an immersion tripto Honduras and encountered abject poverty. Hedisplayed great empathy as he attempted to un-derstand others’ experiences by putting himselfinto their shoes:

The kids at the orphanage are from really difficultbackgrounds, and they can be really, really hard to dealwith. You see all kinds of terrible things. I mean, oneof my students, his 15-year-old sister had been rapedby her dad and had a baby. I mean some really messedup situations you see as a volunteer that you wouldn’twant to subject yourself to.

Owen’s response has a strong emotional di-mension. He appeared to feel saddened by thepoverty and violence around him. Moreover, heexpressed compassion for those who suffer andappreciation for those who are willing to serveothers. His heightened sensitivity to others’ suf-fering, in turn, led Owen to struggle to makesense of his privilege upon his return:

I’m living in this first world culture of excess I sort ofdo feel responsible for it, because a lot of my actionshere are in some ways creating poverty in places likeHonduras and making the problem worse, I feel.

Rather than ignoring his feelings of guilt,Owen used them to become more mindful andbegan to pay more attention to how he usedresources and spent his free time. He also ex-pressed a desire to conduct research on thosewho participate in international service trips tobetter understand their motivations to engage inthis type of work abroad.

Synthesis of approaches to participating inintercultural experiences. These five ap-proaches are distinct from each other in thatstudents used their cognitive and affective ca-pacities to understand differences across cul-tures with varying degrees of complexity. Forexample, listen and observe is the least complexapproach since students focus on absorbing ex-ternal information to create a baseline under-standing of the environment but without build-ing further on this foundation. Compare andcontrast is a more cognitively complex responsethan listen and observe because students inte-grated new information with their prior knowl-edge and experiences, thus, expanding the foun-dation and creating a perspective that drew froma broader knowledge base. Students using bothof these approaches did so without engagingemotionally, only cognitively. Exploring per-


sonal identity may have elicited some emotions,but primarily focused on acquiring informationto more deeply understand and connect with onedimension of one’s identity. Although this ap-proach built on students’ previous culturalknowledge, it did not always lead to a broaderunderstanding of cultural differences. Empa-thize with others reflects the greatest degree ofcomplexity among students’ approaches be-cause they could use either or both of theircognitive and affective capacities, immersingthemselves in another’s experience to better un-derstand it.The extent to which students displayed a

sense of agency also differed across approaches.In the approach of listen and observe, studentsevidenced minimal agency because they pas-sively received information. In comparison, stu-dents who participated in intercultural experi-ences as a means to explore personal identityshowed greater agency by intentionally seekingknowledge and understanding differences.Compare and contrast reflects greater agency inthat it requires more sustained engagement withdifferences in the content or context of experi-ences. Engaging in personal reflection also ev-idences greater agency compared with the firsttwo approaches because students actively en-gaged in reflection about their interculturallearning and considered the implications.Students did not tend to limit their use of a

given approach to a specific context. For exam-ple, although some students on a study abroadimmersion trip focused on acquiring a baselineunderstanding of another culture using the lis-ten-and-observe approach, others leveraged thecompare-and-contrast or engaged in personalreflection approaches as a means to understandthe host culture in comparison with their ownculture. Thus, it seems that individuals’ choiceof approach appeared to be based on their cog-nitive and emotional capacity to respond to theintercultural differences encountered during aparticular experience, and that the capacity fordeploying a range of approaches appears to varywith individual readiness to engage in intercul-tural experiences.

Discussion

Our analysis of students’ experiences pro-vided several insights into the nature and inter-cultural effectiveness and its development.

First, we found that students were most drawninto intercultural learning opportunities afterbeing exposed to others’ experiences (e.g.,Joan), which is consistent with interculturalcontact theory. Students in this study attendedmost to intercultural learning opportunities thatbrought others’ experiences and voices to theforefront. Through hearing about or observingothers’ experiences, students were able to un-derstand culture as it is lived rather than view-ing it as an abstraction (e.g., Quinn), whichenabled them to draw connections between oth-ers’ culturally based experiences and their own.These observations are consistent with theessential role of exposure in Allport’s (1954)intercultural contact theory. It also reflects Pet-tigrew’s (1998) reformulation of intergroupcontact theory identifying four processes thatmediate attitude change, the first of which islearning about those who are different (in histerm, the “outgroup”) and the finding from hismore recent meta-analysis of research (Petti-grew, Tropp, Wagner, & Christ, 2011) that“greater contact is routinely associated with lessprejudice” (p. 274). In these examples, contactoccurred both directly and indirectly. Pettigrewet al. (2011) reported that indirect intergroupcontacts are also effective in reducing prejudice,a point not recognized in Allport’s model.Among our analytic sample of experiences,both those involving direct and indirect contactwith diverse others led to intercultural learning.This leads us to suggest that the quality of thecontact rather than its type may be the keyvariable here. For example, in the context oflearning from study abroad, Lee (2012) reportedthat the use of blogging and ethnographic inter-views were effective means of promotingdeeper engagement, and in a study using a pre-post design using a control group, Pedersen(2010) reported that guided reflection and inter-cultural coaching were effective strategies forpromoting intercultural effectiveness outcomes.The use of pedagogical strategies such as thesethat increase the quality of contact betweendiverse others offers rich resources for educa-tors attempting to enhance the quality of stu-dents’ intercultural educational experiences.Learning from exposure to differences may

seem like so obvious a starting place that ithardly merits discussion. However, the fact thatthis surfaced as a theme in students’ commen-taries about their significant intercultural expe-


riences serves as a good reminder that this is anecessary starting point, in part because it re-flects students’ awareness and understandingabout intercultural issues and dynamics, how-ever naïve or unsophisticated. Further, naïvityabout different cultural practices and values isone of the characteristics associated with theinitial level of intercultural maturity (King &Baxter Magolda, 2005), as is an egocentric viewof social issues. As students move toward anintermediate level of development, they havethe capacities to accept uncertainty and to beginto understand the basis for multiple perspec-tives, and to suspend judgment in interactionwith diverse others. Several of the experiencesreported in this article appear to have laid thegroundwork for development as described inthis model. (Due to its complexity, we explorethe developmental findings in a related study;Perez, Shim, King, & Baxter Magolda, 2011.)Seeing the ways students learn from this initialexposure provides insights for mapping thisprocess in more detail.Second, our findings revealed that feeling

safe was a critical factor in students’ willingnessto engage in intercultural learning. Once stu-dents perceived their environment to be safe,they were able to explore, ask questions, andexamine their beliefs about other cultures moreclosely. Notably, those who felt unsafe or un-wanted withdrew from intercultural learning ex-periences even though they were initially inter-ested in engaging (e.g., Alex). King, BaxterMagolda, and Massé (2011) reported a similarresponse in a study of students’ experience withdissonance based on interactions with diversepeers. In their review of studies of prejudicereduction, Pettigrew et al. (2011) reported thatboth positive and negative emotions serve asaffective mediators and that an increase in em-pathy reduces prejudice. In this study, feelingsserved both to prime students to engage in andto avoid cross-cultural experiences and affectedwhat they learned. At this point, there are clearindicators across studies that the emotional di-mension of intercultural learning plays an im-portant role (e.g., developing empathy for theout-group, as suggested by Pettigrew et al.,2011), but this is not yet well understood.Third, our findings indicated that within the

same types of intercultural contexts (e.g., aca-demic courses, study abroad trips), students usean array of approaches to engage in learning,

and that these approaches vary in complexityand agency. The complexity with which oneinterprets and approaches intercultural issues isat the heart of the developmental ordering ofKing and Baxter Magolda’s (2005) interculturalmaturity model. Those who are most nimbleacross approaches and who can access the morecomplex approaches may have the greatest ca-pacity to engage in and benefit from intercul-tural learning because this kind of agility en-ables students to adapt their type of engagementto the circumstances. Other individual charac-teristics and background experiences may alsoaffect what primes and what inhibits studentlearning across cultural differences. For exam-ple, language interest, degree of ethnocentrism,and intercultural communication apprehension(Kim & Goldstein, 2005; Neuliep & Ryan,1998) have been shown to influence approachesand subsequent learning from intercultural con-tact: Those with greater interest in learningdifferent languages, lower degrees of ethnocen-trism, and lower fear of intercultural communi-cation are most likely to benefit from their in-tercultural experiences.The themes reported in this article suggest

several implications for practice. For example,others’ voices and experiences were particularlypowerful when students were exposed to themover an extended period of time in contexts suchas friendships and immersion trips. On the basisof these data, educators would be well advisedto consider ways to create and sustain contactacross differences over time and take advantageof the range of contexts in which students en-gage in cultural learning. This suggests thatproviding opportunities to engage in intercul-tural experiences (i.e., providing opportunitiesfor contact) is a necessary but not sufficienteducational intervention.The value of sustained contact also calls into

question the use of one-time campus programsor passive programs as strategies to foster thedevelopment of intercultural effectiveness. Al-though these programmatic efforts are used inmany campus communities, students in thisstudy rarely mentioned them as important expe-riences. These findings suggest that studentsshould be encouraged to deal with the sourcesand consequences of their intercultural anxieties(Pettigrew, 1998) and for initial experiences tobe followed by more challenging experiencesthat allow them to hear others’ voices and en-


gage in deeper exploration of cultural differ-ence. For example, border pedagogy (Giroux,1991) can be used to help students share theirpersonal histories and to encourage them tochallenge, cross, and even reconfigure physicaland cultural borders. By promoting an under-standing of the constructed nature of culturalknowledge and empowering individuals to crit-ically examine cultural hegemony, border ped-agogy can be used to enrich students’ capacitiesfor intercultural learning.The finding that students used different ap-

proaches within the same types of interculturalcontexts suggests that providing opportunitiesto engage in intercultural experiences (i.e., pro-viding opportunities for both direct and indirectcontact) is a necessary but not sufficient educa-tional intervention. As they enable and monitorstudent engagement in opportunities, educatorswould be well advised to attend to the ap-proaches students use to understand their expe-riences, assessing their complexity and agency.Also, given the variety of approaches observedhere, educators should consider varied pedago-gies to engage students. Adopting a single ped-agogical strategy might disadvantage studentswho are unfamiliar with, skeptical about, or notattracted to engaging in a given approach. Ifstudents have reservations about engaging inthese pedagogies, we encourage educators todevelop safe spaces and explore these withstudents. We also encourage educators to lookfor evidence of the development of each ofthe attributes of intercultural effectiveness asdefined above (knowledge, complex cognitiveskills, social skills, and personal attributessuch as openness to new ideas). Yonkers-Talz(2004) provided an excellent example of whatcan be accomplished through the thoughtfulintegration of these factors into a studyabroad curriculum.In summary, this inquiry has provided a more

nuanced view of when and how students engagein intercultural experiences that foster under-standing of the development of intercultural ef-fectiveness. This increased understanding of theimportance of direct encounters with others’experiences and the role of emotional safety canbe used by educators to create and sustain op-portunities for students to participate in mean-ingful experiences across cultural differencesthat incorporate these factors. Further, educa-tors who understand how students experience

intercultural learning, specifically that the ap-proaches vary in complexity and agency, canuse this information to sequence learning expe-riences in increasingly complex and challengingways. Ultimately, increasing students’ capaci-ties for intercultural effectiveness is essential ifwe are committed to fulfilling higher educa-tion’s promise of preparing them to live in anincreasingly complex and diverse world.

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Accepted April 24, 2013 �

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How College Students Experience Intercultural Learning ... · How College Students Experience Intercultural Learning: Key Features and Approaches Patricia M. King, Rosemary J. Perez,