Abstract
The increasing demand for culturally competent professionals and a globalized labour market are pressures pushing for the internationalization of higher education institutions. International students and the development of intercultural competence (IC) are crucial in a polarized socioeconomic context, where nationalism and populist movements are on the rise. A systematic literature review was performed on the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases to understand the scholarly production on the development of intercultural competence in higher education and the perceptions of higher education stakeholders. The results point to an increase in scholarly articles on the topic and the need to identify and clearly insert intercultural competence within the curriculum, and to identify difficulties in intercultural encounters among unprepared stakeholders and the higher market return of interculturally competent professionals. The conclusions point to the need to further integrate IC in tertiary education, bearing in mind the obstacles and returns of developing this competence.
In recent years, there has been a rising demand for professionals with a higher level of intercultural competence, either from the neoliberal perspective of capitalist society or as the moral, transformative role of global citizenship (Lilley et al., 2017). Likewise, higher education institutions (HEIs) are forced to compete in the international arena to increase their visibility, student numbers, reputation and leadership (Agnew & VanBalkom, 2009). Internationalization is the pathway chosen to overcome this obstacle (Kehm & Teichler, 2007; Knight, 2003). In order for HEIs to fulfil the purpose they have been assigned as public services to foster adequate knowledge of society’s challenges, they have to alter traditionally bureaucratic, cumbersome structures in order to keep abreast of the changes; that is, they have to adapt and keep up with the breakneck pace of changes in order to meet the demands of the market and globalization (Agnew & VanBalkom, 2009; Deardorff, 2015; Pinto, 2018).
Even though these factors coexist, they do not always support one another: HEIs try to promote international campuses by increasing the number of international students and organizing programmes (Bosse, 2009), yet without undertaking efforts and initiatives to develop intercultural competences or include these competences in the curriculum (Anton et al., 2021; Pinto, 2018). The internationalization of HEIs goes beyond just international degrees, student and professor mobility and hosting occasional cultural events. Phenomena like intercultural collaboration, emigration or immigration and globalization foster a multicultural social experience that leads people to interact with the different realities that comprise society (Hauerwas et al., 2023), and the number of international students and the expectations of developing intercultural competences are increasing at a similar pace (Bosse, 2009).
One of the most prominent, recognized programmes is Erasmus (and its little sibling, Erasmus+). It is targeted directly at the core of global citizenship (Lilley et al., 2017) due to its transformative role of the stakeholders involved and because it aims to build a more cohesive and competitive society, increase innovation and improve social inclusion, an essential factor in preventing radicalization and terrorism (European Commission, 2015, p. 3). The graduates are future professionals in a job market that is contaminated in many ways and characterized by cultural challenges. Therefore, IC is a well-entrenched, desirable attribute sought in the job market (Humburg et al., 2013).
The Erasmus programme, based on student, professor and scholar mobility between HEIs and companies, is the most well-established and successful mobility programme. Ever since it started (1987–88), it has provided more than three million students with the opportunity to study or be trained abroad (European Commission, 2015, p. 3). Thanks to the mobility of students, scholars and other workers, it contributes to and fosters the development of a European identity (Aguaded & Pozo, 2009).
Recent years have witnessed a rise of political organizations and identities that have re-emerged to foster increasing political polarization, a lack of respect for human rights and violence towards and from immigrants and different cultures, fostering nationalism and populism (Dimitrov et al., 2014; Pinto, 2018). These stances on cultural diversity are an argument — and evidence — that now more than ever, intercultural competence is a requirement not only for the market and the development of one’s profession but also for peaceful, meaningful interaction among cultures with a sense of community based on a learning perspective (Deardorff, 2015; Deardorff & Jones, 2012; Griffith et al., 2016). Even though it may occasionally be confused with international experience, intercultural competence encompasses a broad range of tools that go far beyond international experience and include understanding, knowledge, reflection and perspective (Sinicrope et al., 2007).
Intercultural competence has several definitions (Odağ et al., 2015). For this review, we have chosen the following: the set of skills needed to act effectively and appropriately when interacting with other people who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself (Fantini, 2006, 2009). Byram (1997) established a series of dimensions that show the way to develop this culture at three levels: attitudes, intercultural skills and knowledge. Attitudes refers to openness and curiosity towards different cultural backgrounds. Intercultural competence as a skill is associated with intercultural interactions and encounters. Specifically, the readiness to seek and embrace these encounters is crucial to developing the practice of questioning prior assumptions about one’s own and others’ cultures. Even though intercultural encounters are essential, it is equally necessary to understand the behaviour needed in these interactions: non-threatening behaviour appropriate to the communication required in the specific context. Intercultural skills consist of language, communication and knowledge of one’s own and others’ cultures. Therefore, the third level is knowledge, which represents the cultural knowledge acquired before or during the interaction to help ensure that the encounters are a positive experience and to resume or reinitiate future encounters.
Methods
This review was conducted using the PRISMA standards (Urrútia & Bonfill, 2010) and the CerQual tool (Lewin et al., 2018) to evaluate the search results.
Objectives
The objective of this systematic review was to highlight the most recent research on this topic published in the past five years (2018–22) and found in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. The specific objectives were:
(1) to describe the most recent literature on the topic published on the databases chosen during the period 2018–22;
(2) to summarize the scholarly production around the perception of higher education stakeholders on the development of intercultural competence;
(3) to highlight the need to recommend additional intercultural competence options.
Database search
The search was conducted as follows: an electronic search was performed on the Web of Science and Scopus databases on 4 January and 10 February 2022, respectively, using the following keywords (the search was performed in English):
OPIC: ALL = (intercultural competence OR cultural competence AND higher education)
Geographic limits were established, namely Europe, and thematic limits: higher education. A temporal limit was also stipulated, namely publications from the past five years. The justification and argumentation for why these criteria were chosen are related to the cultural changes which have occurred in the past five years and the noticeable cultural friction and associated difficulties. Some of the problems mentioned include nations and the role of questioning the government, the emergence of minorities and supranational entities and the exclusion and marginalization of migrants, as well as civic apathy, populism and nationalism (Bartolomé & Cabrera, 2003; Dimitrov et al., 2014; Guichot, 2012; Pinto, 2018). We also sought to better ascertain the perception of intercultural competence of international students in higher education. We only chose articles in English, Spanish or Portuguese to encompass as many publications as possible. For the purposes of this review, we guided the search towards qualitative results due to the nature of the topic: construct — intercultural competence. The qualitative approach can completely encompass the details provided by the perceptions of intercultural competence provided by the participants and allows for a certain degree of freedom when describing social constructs (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982).
The inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table 1) are an integral part of the objective of this review.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Categorization of the results
After identifying a total of 689 articles, the first selection phase was conducted among the 21 articles obtained via WoS and the 668 from Scopus (n = 689). The review of titles and abstracts resulted in the clear exclusion of 660 articles following the exclusion criteria. After applying the inclusion criteria to the remaining 29, another 21 articles were excluded.
The result of this selection yielded a total of eight publications whose entire text was evaluated applying quality criteria (Table 2). For this phase, the authors used the Numbers® programme (Figure 1).
Included publications.
Research process diagram.
To facilitate the evaluation and reach a consensus on the quality of the results of this review, all the articles were reviewed following the Confidence in Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research (CERQual) (Lewin et al., 2018). Table 3 shows a summary of this evaluation.
Summary of qualitative review findings table.
Results
Below we present the results from the explicit procedure outlined above according to the objectives of this review.
Results of the search
In the past five years, there has been a noticeable increase in the scholarly production and therefore publications in quality databases. This increase peaked in 2021, when the global pandemic gave rise to a rise in scholarly publications (Figure 2). Even though scholarly production doubles every 10 years (Price, 1986), the authors infer a clear relationship between the data presented and the social and health circumstances in this coincidence.
Publication evolution 2018–22 within search criteria.
To further explore the quality of the publications included, in addition to the filter applied by the databases of high-quality articles, we investigated the impact factor of the scholarly journals where the chosen articles were published. Even though two of the journals did not have an impact factor because they were recently launched, the majority of publications included in this review were published in high-quality journals with an impact factor of between 0 and 5 (Figure 3).
Included journals’ impact factor.
Perspectives of the HEI stakeholders
Based on the analyses of the articles chosen and included, the articles reveal the paradox of the need for versus the presence of intercultural competence (IC) in higher education, among both scholars and students (Pinto, 2018; Swartz et al., 2020). The need for greater effort and investment to increase the presence of IC in both the curriculum and in different kinds of training sessions (courses, seminars, workshops, discussions, etc.) is well known. The need for guidance and support both for students having difficulties participating in intercultural interactions that are meaningful or essential (for the development of IC) and for scholars who feel pressure from increasingly intercultural classrooms, and therefore from the job market (Lantz-Deaton, 2017), is also amply acknowledged. Bearing this point in mind, instructors should advocate for students and for the improvement in IC. Both the authorities and the higher education institutions themselves should provide the tools needed to put this into practice (Anton et al., 2020, 2021; Vázquez et al., 2021).
The importance of IC for the job market
The salience of fostering IC in tertiary education is clearly found in the importance the authors attach to the impact that IC, intercultural interactions and experiences abroad have on achieving better results and labour market returns (Anton et al., 2021; Jacob et al., 2019). Post-modern education, including at the tertiary level, aims to foster students’ autonomy and independent thinking (through creativity and different ways of thinking) by focusing its education on achieving future results for both parties in this interaction: students and academia. Having said this, it is assumed that students’ exposure to different and unalike contexts contributes to developing their skills and improving their resilience for life outside academia, and ultimately to discovering new opportunities and enhancing their talents and skills (Holubnycha et al., 2021).
IC and its presence in the curriculum
Despite the tacit agreement among the HEI stakeholders that IC is present in all areas and sectors of higher education (Pinto, 2018), it is essential to stress the difficulties that emerge when students strive to interact with different cultures and situations unlike their own (Álvarez et al., 2022; Gómez et al., 2020; Swartz et al., 2020). These difficulties can be validated through the assumption of the urgent need for a clear presence of IC (through workshops, classes or direct courses). Even though an increase in key competences and therefore intercultural competence is found in some regions, the presence of traditional teaching methods is also evident. It is important to introduce specific classes for developing IC, to review the disciplinary frameworks and pedagogical guidelines and — at the institutional level and in policies (HEI) — to introduce substantive classes and events targeted at developing IC in the regions and cities with the highest migratory movements (Ruiz-Rodríguez & Delgado-García, 2021).
Integrating IC into the curriculum is vitally important for a valid and explicit presence of IC in the academic setting, instead of just an episodic, folkloric and tacit presence, as perceived today. If not for the importance HEIs confer on internationalization and competitiveness or to foster a reduction in nationalist movements (which are violently resurging today), this should be done for the good of students: the greater their experience and competence in intercultural communication and IC, the better their job opportunities will be when they become professionals in the labour market (Anton et al., 2020, 2021; Jacob et al., 2019; Vázquez et al., 2021).
Conclusions
The most recent literature points to the need for a greater presence of IC in the entire higher education spectrum. The scholarly production in the past five years reveals an increase in the pattern of IC as a tool and strategy to obtain better results inside and outside academia. Through their perceptions of IC, HEI stakeholders identify the presence and importance of IC. However, they also identify the difficulties experienced in classrooms and in bureaucratic tasks with intercultural interaction, and the friction among students in their multicultural or intercultural collaborations in academic and social contexts. Intercultural competence is a key construct to build today’s society and foster the effort to achieve an equitable society (Lilley et al., 2017). Either to achieve better working conditions or to contribute to a more equitable knowledge society, the road is clear: we must increase the presence of IC in education to project the knowledge and development of this tool throughout the students’ entire lifetime, including lifelong learning processes. And higher education is a key factor in achieving these objectives (Lantz-Deaton, 2017). Regardless of the institutional objective, this goal can be reached. It depends solely on the will and predisposition of the stakeholders and leaders, just as IC depends on the will to develop it through intercultural interactions and encounters. The good news is that all of this depends on human behaviour and goodwill. The bad news is that we are not taking advantage of this tool’s potential. The limitations of the study include the incorporation only of articles written in English, Portuguese and Spanish, the exclusion of databases with a lower scientific impact and the study’s limitation to Europe.