This study considers the usefulness of the Intercultural Development Inventory in measuring the intercultural sensitivity of a sample of teachers at an established international school in Thailand. In this study, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was used to measure participants’ levels of intercultural sensitivity (ICS), based on Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). To crosscheck the IDI findings and to provide additional insights, qualitative research using interviews of a sample of teacher participants was undertaken. Comparisons were also made with previous studies using the IDI to measure teacher levels of ICS. The aims of the study were to provide additional data about ICS among teachers at an established international school and to look for correlates relating to demographic factors. Specifically, the study aimed to assess the usefulness of the IDI to international schools looking to enhance ICS among students and teachers. The study concludes that the IDI is applicable to an international school context in measuring the intercultural sensitivity of teachers. The results showed that teachers in international schools involved in this study have higher levels of ICS than their counterparts in national schools who took part in previous studies. With respect to the participants in this study, 67.9% were operating in Bennett’s Minimization stage in the DMIS. Levels of ICS were positively correlated with years living in another culture, professional development related to ICS and knowledge of a foreign language. The findings provide insights into and opportunities for further study. Other studies may find similarities with respect to professional development for teachers with respect to ICS, teacher recruitment, gender differences, and levels of ICS among faculties at both national and international schools.

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Emotions have been noted for their crucial role in survival behaviour relating to resistance to cross-cultural ambiguity. Today's globalised multinational corporations (MNCs) have recognised the importance of developing their diverse workforces' intercultural sensitivity (ICS) – a worldview towards cultural difference – as a means of reducing resistance to cross-cultural ambiguity hence maintaining a professional multicultural work environment. However, no studies have yet been made investigating the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in enhancing intercultural sensitivity and simultaneously regulating emotions produced from resistance to cultural difference. Therefore, this study has explored the role of EI in enhancing ICS aiming at increasing the effectiveness of intercultural training within the context of multinational organisations. A theoretical framework was constructed presenting the idea of EI entry-points into intercultural sensitivity and resistance to difference. Through an inductive research approach, a chosen multinational airline company's flight attendants were targeted with in-depth semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory analysis was applied. The analysis resulted in the development of a grounded emotional-cognitive intercultural adaptation process together with three adaptive cognitive states. These were named: Learn, Understand, and Know. Each cognitive state was noted to be associated with a particular emotional state that causes the interacting individual to shift into the relevant cognitive state. The emotions surprise and curiosity were found to be associated with Learn while empathy was found to be associated with Understand, and finally acceptance was found to be associated with Know. The research results strongly support the proposed EI entry-points within the grounded emotional-cognitive content of the produced intercultural adaptation process. The results address the research aim regarding the role of EI in enhancing ICS. Through the EI entry-points, ICS is indirectly enhanced through the development of intercultural performance as EI mental abilities are proposed which would regulate one's behaviour towards the three grounded emotional-cognitive intercultural adaptation states. The developed model is suggested to contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of intercultural training. The trainee's intercultural performance could be enhanced through directing the emotional-cognitive dynamics, during intercultural interaction, towards the empirically grounded set of emotional-cognitive states. As linking EI and ICS remains an important and under-explored topic, it is hoped that the findings of this study will present a better understanding of the dynamics of emotions within the context of multinational organisations, as well as the role of EI in enhancing ICS, subsequently leading to further research.

The purpose of this study was to produce five in-depth case studies of University of Georgia, USA, students who studied abroad for one semester in Spring of 2006. These case studies describe and analyze the students’ self-identified goals and motivations for participating in this study abroad experience. Utilization of Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) naturalistic inquiry method was used to explore the student experiences. In addition to qualitatively analyzing the goals and motivations of these specific cases, descriptive statistics of the student Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) pre- and post-test questions and answers (Intercultural Communication Institute, 2003), taken in Spring 2006 and two years later in Spring 2008, were compared for the purpose of measuring changes in worldview orientations over time. This provided the establishment of convergence or triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data. Further exploration of preferred student learning styles by use of the Kolb Learning Style Inventory, v. 3.1 (Kolb, 1999) was initiated in order to analyze whether the study abroad program design matched the students’ learning style. A study abroad preparatory model, Adapt, Adopt, Adept: A Preparatory Model for Study Abroad, is proposed that increases student active engagement abroad, thereby increasing the potential for accomplishing the stated goal of the University of Georgia (UGA) study abroad program, namely to develop “global citizens.” Inquiry into these areas and the results obtained are directly relevant to study abroad program specialists, interested faculty, upper administrators in university policy making, and future students who might desire to participate in an international learning experience. This particular study, in contrast to those discussed in the literature review, indicates a unique approach by focusing on the following: • one specific, experiential study abroad program; • using naturalistic inquiry as the method of obtaining such data; • using IDI scores to triangulate results of qualitative data; • incorporating information measured by the KLSI. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Qualitative data were obtained via Blackboard, email, chat interviews via the internet, face to face interviews, and by means of journal entries. By using naturalistic inquiry, the specific form of data provided and its content was left largely to the students to choose via the options listed above in order to best represent their voices. Scores on the IDI provide the quantitative data used to assess qualitative findings. The intention was that this study would provide an in-depth investigation of the students’ experiences in order to be used by individuals who find the information to be practical, functional, and helpful in improving the learning and cultural environment of study abroad students.

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This study examined the orientations to cultural difference of sojourner educators in the Foundation Program at Qatar University to determine if orientations were correlated with select demographic and experiential variables, including gender, age, time overseas, education level, formative region, ethnic minority status, job position, length of time in Qatar, intercultural marriage, default language, formal teacher training, and overseas development organization experience. This study used a sequential mixed-method design. Perceived and Developmental Orientations were measured using the Intercultural Development Inventory© (V.3), which produced a measure of each respondent’s orientation to cultural difference. Focus group interviews were conducted to engage participants in explaining and interpreting the findings. Five focus groups of three to six participants each were conducted. Most of the teachers were found to operate from within the transitional orientation of Minimization, although individual scores ranged from Denial to Adaptation. On average, the educators were found to overestimate their orientations by 31 points. A positive correlation between orientation and formative region was found, with participants from North America showing the highest orientation. Statistically significant differences emerged for orientations when comparing Middle East and North African (MENA) and North American formative regions. Formative region was found to account for 4.8% of the variance in orientation and is a significant fit of the data. Focus groups participants speculated that (a) core differences regarding multiculturalism in MENA and North American cultures help explain the results, (b) aspects of the workplace culture and both the broader MENA and local Qatari culture encourage a sense of exclusion, and (c) external events further complicate cross-cultural relations. The study findings add to the literature by providing baseline orientation data on sojourner educators in post-secondary education in the GCC region, and by confirming some of the findings of similar studies. The study provides practitioners with suggestions for staffing and professional development. Future research should focus on the measurement of orientations in broader samples of educators, changes in orientation over time in Qatar and other cultural contexts, differences in orientation among short-term vs. long-term expatriates, the impact of employment systems and societal structures on orientations in sojourner educators, the impact of educator orientation to cultural difference on student achievement, and the design of effective cross-cultural professional development for educators.