This document summarizes a presentation given at the Spring EAIE Academy in 2013 on facilitating cultural learning in education abroad. The presentation discussed how mobility programs can maximize intercultural development, introduced key intercultural concepts and theories, and provided practical applications for program design before, during, and after study abroad experiences to support students' cultural learning. Specific topics covered included cultural learning theories, cultural dimensions, dimensions of intercultural learning, and cultural mentoring strategies.

1. Spring EAIE Academy, Birmingham, April 2013
Facilitating Cultural Learning in
Education Abroad
R. Michael Paige, PhD, Professor of International and Intercultural Education,
University of Minnesota, USA
Dr. Ingrid Gehrke, M.A., Head of International Relations, FH JOANEUM University
of Applied Sciences, Austria

2. Program Overview
• How mobility programs can have the largest impact on
participants‘ intercultural development, one of the primary
objectives of the mobility experience.
• Key intercultural concepts and theories, relevant research
on student learning abroad, and practical applications in
program design through the entire mobility cycle: pre-
departure, in-country, and reentry/return home.

3. Program Content
• Participant needs analysis
• Key intercultural concepts and theories
• Learning styles and cultural dimensions
• General issues of programme design
• Research on culture learning abroad
• Programming ideas for pre-departure, in-country, and re-
entry

4. Program Methodology
• Presentation
• Discussion
• Group work (create your own “product”)
• Individual work
• Participation in experiential learning activities
• Common rules: Ask, value, share, listen…

5. Cultural Learning Theories
• Learning styles
• Cultural dimensions
• Culture learning
• Cultural mentoring: challenge and support

6. Kolb’s Learning Styles
• Concrete experience (feeling)
learning by intuition and interaction with others
• Reflective observation (watching)
learning by perception and observation
• Abstract conceptualization (thinking)
learning by thinking
• Active experimentation (doing)
learning by doing

7. “Teaching around the Wheel”
Concrete Reflective
experience observation
Active Abstract
Experimentation Conceptualization

8. Program Design
Analysis of a Group of Learners
• What do you know about your participants’ learning
styles
• How can you adapt your training to different learning
styles?
• How can you help learners expand their learning
styles?

9. Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
• High versus low power distance
• Individualism versus collectivism
• High versus low uncertainty avoidance

10. Program Design
Analysis of a Group of Learners
• What do our participants know about these cultural
dimensions?
• What do our participants know about their own culture?
• What can we do to support cultural self awareness and
other culture awareness?

11. Dimensions of Intercultural Learning
(Paige, 2006)
1) Learning about the Self as a Cultural Being
2) Learning about the Elements of Culture
3) Culture-Specific Learning
4) Culture-General Learning
5) Learning About Learning
These dimensions provide a template for an intercultural
curriculum

12. Cultural Mentoring
(Paige & Goode, 2009)
Cultural mentoring means providing:
1) Ongoing support for learning
2) Concepts and ideas to anchor learning
3) Strategies for learning
4) Opportunitites to put learning into practice
5) Opportunities to reflect on experience
6) Opportunities to connect what was learned to the future
(employment, education, life)

13. Cultural Mentoring: Research Findings
Nature of the Intervention Average IDI Gain
No intervention
Georgetown Consortium Study (60 progs.) +1.32
With a limited on-line intervention
University of Minnesota +4.47
With an instructor-facilitated on-line intervention
Bellarmine University and Willamette University +8.19
With an on-site course and instructor
Council in International Education and Exchange +9.00
With an PDOT, on-site course, and intensive
cultural mentoring
American University Center of Provence +12.47
With pre-departure and re-entry courses and an
Internationalized academic program (2-3 years)
University of the Pacific +17.46

14. Program Design
Analysis of a Group of Learners
• What can we do to support our participants’
intercultural learning skills?
• In what ways can we provide cultural mentoring for our
students? In person? Online?

15. Master Intercultural Topics for Mobility
Programs
• Culture
• Cultural adjustment
• Perception
• Nonverbal communication
• Communication styles
• Values
• Gender issues
• Intercultural adaptation

16. Culture Learning: Pre-Departure
• Connect to pre-departure in terms of content
• Have re-entry in mind
• Self-reflective or interactive?
• All your students need to have access to your
technology
• What and how much should we do „online“?

17. Culture Learning: In Country
• Blogs, diaries, journals
• Structured reports (on line or on paper)
• Example: Global Identity course (University of Minnesota)
• Example: SKILL2E (EU and internship)
• Example: LMU online project

18. Culture Learning: Re-entry
• Treat the students as a resource for the institution
• Create opportunities to value the experience
- buddies for incoming students
- study abroad fair
-“culture experts“
• Data management and distribution? Who knows they
were abroad and who should know

19. Key Intercultural Development
Concepts
R. Michael Paige, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota

20. Intercultural Intensity Factors
(Paige, 1993)
1) Differences in cultural values, beliefs, practices
2) Ethnocentrism
3) Language issues
4) Cultural immersion
5) Cultural isolation
6) Prior intercultural experience
7) Expectations
8) Visibility/invisibility
9) Status
10)Power and control

21. The Developmental Model of Intercultural
Sensitivity (Bennett, 1993)
1) Ethnocentric worldview orientations
- Denial of Difference
- Defense against Difference
- Minimization of Difference
2) Ethnorelative worldview orientations
- Acceptance of Difference
- Cognitive and Behavioral Adaptation to Difference
- Integration of Difference

22. References
• Bennett, M. J. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental
model of intercultural sensitivity. In R. M. Paige (Ed.) Education
for the intercultural experience (pp. 21-71). Yarmouth, Maine:
Intercultural Press.
• Bennett, M. J. (2004). From ethnocentrism to ethnorelativism.
In J. S. Wurzel (Ed.), Toward multiculturalism: A reader in
multicultural education (pp. 62-78). Newton, MA: Intercultural
Resource Corporation.
• Paige, R.M., Jacobs-Cassuto, M., Yershova, Y. A. & DeJaeghere,
J. (2003). Assessing intercultural sensitivity: A psychometric
analysis of the Hammer and Bennett Intercultural Development
Inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27,
467-486.

23. References
• Vande Berg, M., & Paige, R. M. (2009). Applying theory and
research: The evolution of intercultural competence in U.S. study
abroad. In D. K. Deardorff (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of
intercultural competence, (pp. 404-418). Thousand Oaks, CA:
SAGE Publishing.
• Paige, R. M., & Goode. M. L. (2009). Cultural mentoring:
International education professionals and the development of
intercultural competence. In D. K. Deardorff (Ed.), The SAGE
handbook of intercultural competence, (pp. 333-349). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing.

24. The EAIE Academy is a one-week training
programme for international higher education
professionals.
www.eaie.org/training | #EAIEAcademy | @TheEAIE