Abstract:

The paper reports on the final results and outputs of the Erasmus Mundus Intercultural Competence project (EMIC). The EMIC project was designed to develop an integrated learning programme in order to help Erasmus Mundus students deal with issues of cultural diversity and, from a developmental perspective, use intercultural contexts to their advantage. The learning intervention was contextualised within students’ own experience, to allow them to compare the theoretical concepts with situations encountered in everyday study and life. The learning intervention was evaluated by means of a mixed methods approach. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected, in order to improve the EMIC Learning Programme and develop a practical and feasible Toolkit output for developing Intercultural Competence.

The paper details main features of the EMIC Toolkit which was the final output of the project. Based on the EMIC project experience, the EMIC Toolkit is proposed as an Open Education Resource (OER) that is scalable, customisable and potentially useful for other higher education programmes. The purpose of the EMIC Toolkit is to provide a set of flexible resources and tools to support developing Intercultural Competence in contexts similar to the Erasmus Mundus programme. This Toolkit is composed of a series of learning activities organised in ‘bundles’ so that they can be used as a reflection tool to support students in developing Intercultural Competence. Activities are arranged in a blended learning model with a proposed mix of face-to-face workshops and individual and group reflective online activities. The EMIC Toolkit also offers easy-to-use strategies for customising and implementing contextualised learning activities in the users’ own cultural and academic contexts through guidelines and examples of good practices.

Despite the fact that the EMIC Toolkit was developed based on experiences of joint Master’s students from around the world studying in European Higher Educational Institutions, the learning programme described in this Toolkit addresses core Intercultural Competence that is relevant for all students experiencing mobility internationally or home students studying in diverse settings, as well as in preparation for intercultural workplace experiences in their careers. The paper concludes with notes on implementation and further lines of research and practice needed to develop the intercultural competence approaches in higher educational institutions.

Keywords:

Intercultural competence, toolkit, blended learning, joint degrees, higher education.