The Particular and Universal in Cross-cultural Curricula in General Education: a Comparative Study of Students’ Intercultural Sensitivity

Globalisation and entry into the era of knowledge economy have led to a stronger focus on internationalisation of higher education, with universities seeking to develop students’ international sensitivity (IS) through cross-cultural general education courses. The current study used the intercultural sensitivity scale to investigate the effectiveness of such courses in improving students’ IS. The study recruited 197 students enrolled in multicultural and bicultural courses and revealed that the students had high IS in terms of respect for cultural differences and interaction engagement but low interaction confidence. The male students had higher interaction confidence scores than the female students did. However, no other background attributes significantly influenced IS. The results of this study indicate that cross-cultural general education courses can enhance students’ IS, particularly with respect to their interaction engagement, respect for cultural differences, and interaction enjoyment.