Guidelines for Intercultural Competence
University of Tampere, Research Centre for Vocational Education, Byoma Tamrakar

As a consequence of globalization, multiculturalism is on an intense rise. With the rise of multiculturalism, there is an increasing need for people to be able to deal effectively and competently with the diversity of race, culture and ethnicity. One’s ability to deal effectively and appropriately with diversity is referred to as intercultural competence. Intercultural competence today is at the core of research in the fields of communication, psychology and education. It is also of extreme importance to the practitioners from the fields of business, diplomacy, development cooperation, and social and healthcare among others. One of the major sectors where intercultural competence for practitioners becomes a prerequisite is online learning, popularly known as eLearning. This is because Internet is described as a melting pot in which people of different races, religions, nationality, and abilities share experiences and skills with each other and learn from each other (Lynch, 2004).

Intercultural competence is a relatively new concept and there has been no consensus about it so far. The concept of intercultural competence is also referred to with different terms; some refer to it as multicultural competence while others call it cross-cultural competence. While these concepts can be viewed as having ostensibly similar and overlapping meanings, they can also be separated into different categories. The concept of cross-cultural competence tends to compare two cultures using similarities and differences whereas the concept of multicultural competence focuses on several (usually more than two) cultures existing side by side and dealing with their basic psychological processes. The concept of intercultural competence among these three concepts emerges as the most dynamic concept as it focuses on interactions between cultures at interpersonal levels.

Intercultural competence, in simple terms can be defined as the abilities amongst people to interact and understand effectively and appropriately with those who are ethnically, racially and culturally different from one another. Many scholars define intercultural competence as being able to act flexibly and skillfully in changeable situations with different kinds of people. It also means being able to make decisions that are not bound to preconceptions or prejudices. Therefore the cognitive or attitudinal qualities or behavior of an interculturally competent person is not biased to one’s cultural norms but are on the contrary open to understanding and respecting cultural diversity.

Over the years, various scholars have introduced numerous models to develop intercultural competence at an individual’s level. In many of these models, behavioral assessments are emphasized as the key elements of learning the process of intercultural competence. Jolene Koester and Margaret Olebe (1988) have introduced the Behavioral Assessment Scale for Intercultural Competence (BASIC), a guide to the very basics of intercultural competence. The culture-general concept of BASIC focuses on eight different categories of communication behavior namely Display of Respect, Orientation of Knowledge, Empathy, Task Role Behavior, Rational Role Behavior, Interaction Management, Tolerance of Ambiguity and Interaction Posture, contributing to the achievement of intercultural competence. Jolene Koester and Margaret Olebe have further introduced a tool to distinguish between the techniques of description, interpretation and evaluation of intercultural competence. This concept encourages people to describe the sensory information they receive and then to construct alternative interpretations about the perceptions they form and make correspondingly different evaluations. In the context of eLearning and intercultural competence, Maggie McVay Lynch (2004) encourages people to regulate discourse on ethics of treating others with respect, sincerity and fairness.

Developing intercultural competence at a practical, day to day-to-day level however, is a major challenge and to become an interculturally competent person might be an impossible mission. However, the most important thing is to realize that learning intercultural competence is a lengthy, on-going process that can often last a lifetime. During this learning process, people might experience moments of regression and stagnation but they have to bear in mind that there is no end as it is always an on-going process. Furthermore, people may keep on developing and expanding their competence and there might still remain challenges that will continue to make the process enriching as well as rewarding.