In today’s globalized world, where vast distances are bridged by rapid air travel and even faster communication technologies, people from different cultural backgrounds interact all the time.

These people may have different upbringings and perspectives, but with intercultural competence, they can communicate effectively in spite of those differences.

But what, exactly, is intercultural competence? And what can young people do to develop this ever-important skill?

What is Intercultural Competence?

Intercultural competence refers to a set of behavioral skills that allows people to communicate and work with people from different cultural backgrounds effectively.

To build intercultural competence, you must learn to communicate appropriately with people who have different beliefs, lifestyles, and experiences from your own.

When traveling, for example, a person with strong cultural intelligence is able to interact with local people respectfully. They understand the nuances of their position as a visitor as well as the specific values of the host culture, and they behave accordingly.

What are the Four Key Components of Intercultural Competence?

Intercultural competence can be broken down into four key behavioral skills. Practicing these skills is the first step to bridging cultural differences.

Self-awareness

Any person that wants to build intercultural competence must first acknowledge the position of their own culture relative to others: they must be self-sware.

Understand that your worldview is unlikely to be shared by people with different cultural backgrounds. Something that you see as “alien” or “weird” might be completely normal in other cultural contexts.

Empathy

Once you’ve mastered self-awareness, you can begin to consider the perspectives of others through intercultural empathy. This consists of three areas:

Cognitive empathy, the ability to relate to another’s perceptions and beliefs;
Emotional empathy, the ability to imagine another’s feelings, and;
Behavioral empathy, the ability to understand another’s behavior, including its causes.

Communication

The interculturally competent person is a confident communicator and shows a willingness not only to engage with different cultures, but to learn from them too.

Foreign languages go a long way here, but good non-verbal communication is also helpful. Strong listening skills are likewise important, being key to building cultural competence.

Flexibility

Intercultural competence is about feeling comfortable within a range of different cultural contexts—not just one or two!

Globalization is amplifying cultural diversity in society, making it important for people to be able to adapt to many different cultures at the same time.

Why is Intercultural Competence Important in 2021?

It’s cliche, but the world today is truly interconnected. People with different cultural upbringings regularly cross paths and collaborate for a host of different reasons.

In education, millions of international students swap their native lands in search of rich experiences abroad every year. In the workplace, most businesses depend on connections with overseas clients and customers.

As of 2019, there was also an estimated 272 million international migrants in the world, accounting for 3.5% of the planet’s population. If you live in an OECD country, the proportion of migrants is likely even higher.

All of this means that intercultural interactions are now happening everywhere, all the time.

Intercultural Competence and Employability

For graduates entering the jobs market, intercultural competence is a vital skill. Many organizations—especially large multinationals—employ staff from diverse backgrounds. To function effectively, employees must regularly engage with people from different cultures.

Alongside other role-based competencies and personality requirements, hiring managers will often assess a candidate’s cultural competence during the recruitment process.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management’s landmark report on Cultural Intelligence, organizations that build a diverse team benefit in the following ways:

Expansion into culturally diverse markets,
High-quality service to diverse customers and clients,
Speed and efficiency,
Productive assignments,
Being an employer of choice
Team effectiveness,
Profitability and cost savings.

Despite the importance of intercultural competence, many jobseekers lack this fundamental skill.

Other SHRM research shows that 15% of HR executives have encountered shortages in applicants’ intercultural skills, namely “the ability to work well with a diverse workforce and customer base.”

These findings suggest that not enough is being done to prepare young people for today’s global workforce. In the education system, practitioners must place greater emphasis on building intercultural competence to boost the employability of their students.

How to Develop Intercultural Competence

Here are three simple steps for teachers and students to develop intercultural competence:

Leave your comfort zone behind

The first step to building intercultural competence is to depart from your cultural comfort zone. This can be daunting at first, but the rewards are worth it!

This can be achieved independently by exploring cultural resources such as books and podcasts that examine other cultures or even attending a virtual study abroad program. The best way to leave your comfort zone behind, though, is to travel.

The most important thing is to suspend any preconceptions you might have about other cultures and commit to seeing them for yourself.

2. Learn from others

In spite of cultural differences, you can still learn many things from other cultures. Eventually, you may even pick up new beliefs and values from your intercultural interactions!

Surrender yourself to learning by immersing in other histories and languages. If you get the opportunity, participate in community-based learning initiatives to see directly how other people live.

Your own culture is just one way of looking at the other world; exploring others will open your mind to new ideas and experiences.

3. Reflect on experiences

Self-reflection is crucial in developing cultural awareness. Think deeply about how culture shapes your perspective as well as the perspectives of people with different cultural backgrounds.

This self-reflective practice should highlight that culture isn’t prescriptive and differences are normal.

It should also prompt you to question your own assumptions. This is key to bridging divides with other cultural groups and improving your communication in future intercultural interactions.

How Study Abroad Builds Intercultural Competence

While classroom teaching can improve cultural understanding, true intercultural competence comes from experiencing other cultures first-hand.

Study abroad exposes people to alternative lifestyles and belief systems, leading them to query their own cultural values.

This reflective process tends to create a greater sense of connectedness with others, which can have a profound effect on a person’s outlook and social behavior.

Of course, many study abroad experiences only scratch the surface of other cultures and fail to build intercultural competence. However, cultural immersion programs, which promote authentic engagement with other cultures, often have a formative impact on their participants.

Culturally immersive travel allows people to inhabit a world of different values and traditions. Tourist comforts are spared and local interactions become the norm. This immersion breeds familiarity, allowing travelers to feel more confident and flexible in different cultural contexts.

At Learn from Travel, we work with cultural intelligence training specialists Kolcha Collaborative to deliver immersive study abroad experiences that equip young people with the skills needed to thrive in today’s culturally diverse labor market.

Summary

Intercultural competence is now an essential skill for students entering a highly competitive global workforce.

Young people who engage in cultural immersion travel reap the benefits of improved intercultural skills, giving them an edge in the jobs market.

But cultural competence isn’t just a pathway to employability—it’s about learning from others to become a more worldly and empathetic person.

If you’re an educator interested in building your students’ intercultural competence, click here to read about Learn from Travel’s fully customizable study abroad cultural immersion programs.