A Study of the Level of Intercultural Communicative Competence and Intercultural Sensitivity of Iranian Medical Students Based on Ethnicity

ABSTRACT

Competence and sensitivity at intercultural communication are essential for an effective and appropriate communication in the context of health care. The present study sought to survey the levels of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and intercultural sensitivity (IS) of 400 Iranian medical students based on their ethnic backgrounds (i.e. Fars, Turkish, Kurdish, and Lor). The findings of this study indicated that the four ethnic groups had moderate levels of ICC and IS, and that the Lor ethnic group had the lowest mean scores on the four dimensions of ICC (i.e. knowledge, attitude, skills, and awareness). Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicity
• intercultural communicative competence (ICC)
• intercultural sensitivity (IS)
• Iranian medical students

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editors of the Journal of Intercultural Communication Research for giving us with the opportunity to submit our manuscript. We are also grateful to the Iranian medical students who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Afsaneh Nameni

Afsaneh Nameni is currently a PhD candidate in TEFL, Arak University. She is presently a lecturer at Tehran University of Medical Science. Her research interests include culture, intercultural communication, and critical discourse analysis.

Hamidreza Dowlatabadi

Hamidreza Dowlatabadi is presently a faculty member of English Language and Literature Department at Arak University. He holds a PhD degree in Discourse Analysis and has taught language and discourse studies in different academic schools in England and Iran. Publishing papers in international journals, he has also presented many conferences worldwide. His research interests focus on analysis of discourse in different fields such as culture and media.