Components of Intercultural Competence Intercultural encounters may involve contact between people from different countries, people from different regional, linguistic, ethnic or religious backgrounds. An interpersonal encounter becomes an intercultural encounter when cultural differences are perceived and made noticeable either by the situation or by the individual’s own attitudes. If an interpersonal encounter becomes an intercultural encounter, that is the situation where intercultural competence is then required in order to achieve harmonious interaction and effective dialogue. So based on that, intercultural competence can be defined as “the ability to consistently apply through behaviour a combination of the attitudes, skills and knowledge which are needed for understanding, and for effectively and appropriately interacting and communicating with, people who are perceived to be culturally different from oneself”.1 Based on that definition, Deardorff identifies some core components of intercultural competence, that can be broken down into four main categories: • Attitudes • Skills • Knowledge
1 Deardorff, D. K. 2006 , The Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization at Institutions of Higher Education in the United States, Journal of Studies in International Education, Retrieved from: https://www.mccc.edu/~lyncha/doc uments/Deardorff-identificationandassessmentofinterculturalcompetenceasanoutcomeofInternationalizat.pdf
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