Assessing the intercultural sensitivity of students in an agriculture diversity and social justice course

ABSTRACT

In an increasingly connected world, the industry of agriculture finds itself at the centre of the challenges of globalisation, including diversity and social equity issues. Recognising the responsibility of the academic discipline of agriculture to respond to these challenges, this study assesses the effectiveness of the interventions in a diversity consciousness–raising course comprised of experiential and reflective activities grounded in critical pedagogy, social development theory, and cognitive development theory as implemented with students in small-group recitation labs. The impact of the interventions was measured in a pre-/post-test design with the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). As a group, participants in the study slightly increased their scores on the IDI, with forward-stage movement and Perceived-Developmental Orientation gap decreases evident in roughly half of students. Implications of the findings, including the fit of the IDI for this context and limitations of the study design, are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural sensitivity
• diversity and social justice
• intercultural development inventory
• higher education
• programme evaluation
• multicultural coursework

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Notice of duplicate publication: Assessing the Intercultural Sensitivity of Students in an Agriculture Diversity and Social Justice Course

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Lambert Snodgrass

Lisa Lambert Snodgrass is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Purdue University. She earned her PhD from the College of Education at Purdue University in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Career and Technical Education. Lisa’s research interests focus on the areas of US domestic and international cultural competency and social justice, transformation of learning environments through incorporation of experiential pedagogy, and the role of cultural studies in higher education programmes.

Pamala V. Morris

Pamala V. Morris is an Assistant Dean/Director of the Office of Multicultural Programs and Professor of Youth Development and Agricultural Education, in the College of Agriculture at Purdue University. As faculty, her primary areas of focus and scholarship are developing intercultural competence grounded in intersectional theory, which provides a critical lens for bringing awareness and enhancing capacity of institutions to engage in social justice discourse and practice; investigating resistance to learning in the face of cultural disequilibrium; and employing service-learning pedagogy through the lens of diversity/social justice issues.

Kris Acheson

Kris Acheson- is a former faculty member in Applied Linguistics at Georgia State University and a US Fulbright Scholar to Honduras. She currently serves as Associate Director of Intercultural Pedagogy and Scholarship at Purdue University, where she co-directs CILMAR, the Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment, and Research. She consults for various universities and research projects on designing and measuring the effectiveness of intercultural interventions.