Developing culturally intelligent students from within the classroom

Abstract

Students today are faced with an increasingly interconnected world that encompasses more than geographical reach, but also cultural reach in terms of people, situations, and interaction as well as intellectual reach in the development of a global mind-set and global skills. This notion of reach aligns directly to the development of cultural intelligence (CQ) and an individual’s capability to adapt effectively to new cultural contexts and situations. Moreover, educators in higher education who teach in diverse classrooms can support the development of CQ through adopting a culturally responsive teaching approach when delivering an international curriculum module, Thus, promoting the cultural knowledge and prior experiences of diverse students to make learning relevant for them. This portrays the overall purpose of this study which is: to explore the development of cultural intelligence among postgraduate students who participate in the international human resource management module. This research has evolved from teaching an international module to home and international students, a classroom environment that not only acknowledges the educator’s responsibility to prepare ‘all’ students for the interconnected world but also he benefits of a culturally responsive teaching (CRT) approach. This study addresses the gap in theoretical and empirical research on CQ that fails to acknowledge culturally responsive teaching as an essential factor in developing culturally intelligent students. Subscribing to the ontological belief that the world is socially constructed through the interaction of people, this ethnographic study investigates: to what extent can teaching an international business module develop culturally intelligent students? A sample of 19 postgraduate students provide primary data from multiple qualitative methods such as reflective diaries, video recordings and semi-structured interviews to support the inductive reasoning of this study. This research contributes to educational studies to uncover the ‘international classroom’ and the essential collaboration between the teacher and student to develop CQ.