This comprehensive volume provides a state-of-the-art overview of the key issues and developments in study abroad research and practice with a specific focus on the intercultural and language learning dimensions of the study abroad experience. Rather than looking at individual studies, the book seeks to capture the full complexity of the language learning and intercultural dynamics of study abroad by exploring a wide range of topics of particular interest to study abroad researchers and practitioners, including the role of individual differences, identity reconstruction and interculturality, the challenges of assessing learning outcomes, and recent pedagogical interventions designed to enhance and extend language learning and engagement in these contexts. The volume also takes a step back to look at future directions for study abroad research and offers innovative interventions in study abroad programming that emphasise its intercultural elements. This book is an authoritative resource for study abroad scholars and researchers in such fields as intercultural communication, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language education.

Engaging with the topic of critical intercultural education at tertiary level, the book aims to strengthen what critical intercultural communication means and facilitate its implementation in higher education classrooms. With contributors coming from a variety of educational contexts and disciplines, the book provides a versatile and comprehensive picture of how intercultural communication can be approached in different fields. By offering a reflection on theoretical frameworks for teaching and learning critical intercultural communication, it bridges the gap between theory and practice in recent years. Furthermore, it proposes concrete pedagogical solutions that will help educators working at the tertiary level move from essentialist approaches to meaningful intercultural education. Higher education teachers, lecturers and professors responsible for the design and delivery of teaching on intercultural communication will find this book helpful and resourceful.

Given the high degree of immigration in the current world, institutions of higher learning are increasingly hosting people of various different cultures and nationalities as employees and students. It has thus become important for universities to invest in their human capital by equipping employees and students with the necessary skills to meet the demands of their institutional diversity in a bid to become culturally flexible in the current multicultural context of higher education across the world. This book is an academic adventure that addresses issues of communication and interculturality in higher education. It provides rigorous details and several contexts through which to understand intercultural communication in higher institutions. The book unpacks a number of barriers with contextual references central to understanding contexts in which intercultural encounters take place in higher institutions. It shows how institutions of higher learning can be a great vehicle for building intercultural awareness and competence, and provides robust discussions of culture and the possible barriers that could affect intercultural relationships in higher institutions.

This edited volume interrogates the meanings of internationalization in higher education in different political-economic contexts. Written by multidisciplinary scholars based in different parts of the world (China, Finland, France, Korea, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, UK, USA), the chapters allow the reader to critically ‘listen in’ on glocalized (global + local) discourses of internationalization in education (meanings, epistemologies, critiques and current research/policies). The volume aims to support students and scholars in clarifying for themselves and others what internationalization might mean and entail, using alternative ways of characterizing, critiquing and unsettling internationalization. The authors adopt critical intercultural perspectives in their chapters, based, for example, on humanistic entry points, the continuum of ideological specificities-commonalities, while balancing self-other (acceptance, rejection), questioning the 'taken for granted' and offering some decolonial analyses and reflections. The volume thus aims to better understand and nuance the polysemic and glocalized nature of internationalization in order to strengthen international cooperation in education (research) and to provide more opportunities to come together to recognize and support, for example, multiple perspectives, experiences and knowledge. Scholars, students and education professionals interested in higher education, intercultural studies and topics of internationalization and globalization will greatly benefit from the book.

Any educational environment involves the interaction of diverse groups and individuals. To foster productive and effective communication, it becomes imperative to understand people’s different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as their value systems. Promoting Intercultural Communication Competencies in Higher Education is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on the presence of cultural diversity in educational contexts and how to promote effective dialogues in these environments. Highlighting extensive coverage on topics relating to intercultural learning, such as social identity, gender diversity, and formative feedback, this book is ideally designed for academics, upper-level students, educators, professionals, and practitioners seeking pedagogical research on communication between diverse cultural groups.

While research into intercultural teaching has grown exponentially during the past two decades, the research has primarily resorted to the use of quantitative data collection instruments and the interpretation of scores calculated through them. As such, studies in the field can seem somewhat decontextualized, ignoring in some cases setting-specific parameters. Therefore, further study is needed to bring together theory, research, and practice demonstrating how this teaching is reflected in research design and how it is undertaken in different settings. Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Contexts is an essential reference source that provides a series of rich insights into the way intercultural education is practiced in numerous international contexts and showcases practical examples of teaching situations and classroom activities that demonstrate its impact within the classroom. Featuring research on topics such as higher education, multilingualism, and professionalism, this book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, administrators, professionals, academicians, and students seeking pedagogical guidance on intercultural teaching.

This book explores the nature of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), a set of abilities required to promote sojourner engagement with diversity during study abroad and other educational exchange experiences. A highly original contribution to the intercultural communication literature, this book bases its multinational perspective of ICC on an extensive literary search in six languages and spanning 50 years to identify ICC’s multiple components, to develop a comprehensive assessment tool, and to assess its development and impact on exchange participants in multiple countries.

Intercultural Competence in Higher Education features the work of scholars and international education practitioners in understanding the learning outcomes of internationalization, moving beyond rhetoric to concrete practice around the world. Devoted exclusively to exploring the central learning outcomes of internationalization efforts, this edited volume contains a refreshing combination of chapters and case studies from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural contributors, including: cutting-edge issues within intercultural competence development, such as intersectionality, mapping intercultural competence, and assessment; the role of higher education in developing intercultural competence for peacebuilding in the aftermath of violent conflict; facilitating intercultural competence through international student internships; interdisciplinary and cross-cultural contributions from over 19 countries including Japan, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, and Vietnam; the latest research and thinking on global, intercultural, and international learning outcomes, with a unique emphasis on newer voices. Intercultural competence has become an essential element in international as well as domestic education. This text provides the latest thinking and research within the context of internationalization, presents practical case studies on how to integrate this into the preparation of global-ready students and will be of interest to postgraduate students, international education administrators, and practitioners, as well as scholars and researchers in a variety of disciplines who have an interest in intercultural and global competence.

Takes a critical look at present approaches to international education, focusing on the intercultural potential that it offers but mostly fails to deliver. The underlying premise of this profound, engaging book is that international education can be a transforming intercultural experience for hosts as well as visitors.