The influence of intercultural learning on the worldmindedness of sojourners

Abstract

In assessing the acceptability of the influence ofintercultural learning on the sojourners' worldmindednessand global awareness, the present study investigates thedifferences between people with previous interculturallearning experiences and those who have not had suchexperiences, in perceiving world problems and definingpossible solutions to them.94 Ss (53 M, 41 F, from 64 countries) who work inthe field of intercultural education/exchanges, and withprevious intercultural learning experiences were used asthe research group (AFS), and they were matched to somedegree with 82 Ss (40 M, 42 F, from Turkey) who weregraduate students--in Bogazi~i University (BU) throughconvenient sampling. A questionnaire consisting of 6open-ended questions was used, in which Ss were asked toidentify, in their opinion, the two most important problemstheir home country (HP), the world (WP), and the worldyouth were facing.Three different global awareness scales (HP-WP,HP-YP, and WP-YP) were employed, and the global awarenessscores for each scale were derived from Ss' pairedresponsesto the HP, WP, and YP questions in the researchquestionnaire. Results indicated significant differencesbetween AFS and BU groups in all the three scales used inthis study, supporting the research hypothesis thatsojourners are more perceptive in differentiating their HPfrom WP (t=3.17, df=174, p<0.05), from YP (t =1.93, df=174,p<0.05), and WP from YP (t =1.65, df=174, p<0.05).The content analysis performed on Ss' definitions ofintercultural learning, and their possible solutions to WPby four judges also indicated that AFS group shows asignificantly higher level of agreement and accuracy indefining this concept, as well as being significantly moreworldminded in their solutions to WP than the BU group.Analysis performed on the data from Sampson andSmith's (1957) Likert-type `worldmindedness` scale that wasadministered to Btl group indicated that there was nosubstantial relation between this scale and any of thethree global awareness scales used in this study, as therewere no significant differences observed between BU Ss whoscored high on this scale and the BU Ss who did not neitherin their global awareness scores nor-rn their solutions toWP. On the other hand, BU Ss with some sort of sojournexperiences were found more worldminded in their solutionsto WP than the BU Ss without any sojourn experiences.The result~ being significant, supported the mainhypothesis that sojourners become less ethnocentric andmore worldminded as a result of their interculturallearning experiences, and therefore, they demonstrate ahigher level of global awareness in differentiating globalissues and concerns from HP than people without suchexperiences.