Strategies to embed intercultural competence as a soft skill in university curriculum

Intercultural competence (IC) has become significantly important as we interact and function in the global workplace and multicultural societies. To be effective in operating within a diverse multicultural society, understanding, negotiating and managing the differences is crucial. Additionally, the rich diversity should be celebrated in order to have a safe, sustainable and harmony global community. Specifically, internationalization in higher education has led to a significant increase in the importance of IC for students and staff. For international students, “learning shock” and different expectations of teaching styles require them to develop IC in order to be able to interact and facilitate their learning in different cultures. For local students, the increasing numbers of international students and new immigrant students result in the necessity to develop IC. For educators, IC enables them to be responsive to the diverse multicultural student body in order to deliver quality teaching and learning.
In this paper, based on the literature review, we attempt to suggest ways to embed intercultural competence as the soft skill in the university curriculum. Two complementary strategies will be discussed. The first approach focuses on embedding IC in the university curriculum. Considering IC is an abstract skill and difficult to measure, an outcome-based approach will be proposed to map students’ development of IC. The second is through international experience program that provides cross-cultural experience for students. This strategy describes how teaching practicum in other culture appears to be compatible with the principles to develop intercultural competence.

Pursuing justice for refugee students: addressing issues of cultural (mis)recognition

In this paper Nancy Fraser’s conceptual tools are drawn on to theorise issues of justice in a culturally diverse primary school in Australia where approximately 30% of the student population are immigrant/refugees. The paper examines justice issues of cultural recognition in relation to refugee student identity, behaviour and assessment. Drawing on interview data from a study that sought to identify productive approaches to addressing equity for refugee students, the paper highlights the school’s efforts to remedy issues of cultural misrecognition associated with an equation of refugee student difference and marginality with deficit and lack. Such efforts relate to the school’s endeavours to create an inclusive and socially cohesive environment that supports a valuing of, and connection to, refugee student difference. These endeavours are theorised as highly productive in their capacity to disrupt the relations of cultural domination, non-recognition and disrespect that exclude and/or malign some refugee students at the school and broader level. The paper argues the importance of such an approach in light of the unprecedented diversity and complexity of the global context where schools are consistently challenged with new and changing equity concerns and priorities.