There have been over 10,000 respondents to the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), one of the most validated assessment instruments in the field of international education and intercultural learning. It consists of a survey questionnaire and a follow-up debriefing with a Qualified IDI Administrator. I learned a lot about this instrument and its underlying developmental framework in the workshop today, led by Debra Freathy. The underlying framework for IDI is an Intercultural Development Continuum (Hammer, 2019) to always consider for effective intercultural pedagogy:

The Monocultural mindset, entailing the developmental stages of Denial, Polarization, and Minimization, spanning to the other end of the continuum, which is the Intercultural mindset, entailing the developmental stages of Acceptance and Adaptation.

I am definitely interested in reading the latest research in which the IDI has been deployed, especially Hammer's 2011 study which showed that the IDI is predictive in terms of diversity hiring goals. It is apparently also valid across cultures which is intriguing.

But what really got me thinking was the idea of "developmental work" and learning that is "guided and directed." It’s about learning how to learn. By thinking about how we think about culture, we become more effective in our intercultural learning and therefore more capable of achieving goals requiring cross-cultural communication. Debra describes this as "meeting the learner where they’re at." I am considering revising my global e-portfolio to reflect specific starting points for learners at different points of intercultural development.

In addition, I plan to design upcoming teacher training programs differently based on the fact that the vast majority of respondents to the IDI are at the developmental stage of minimization. This certainly rings true for me in terms of my experience teaching teachers about the Middle East and their pedagogical approaches which usually concentrate on minimizing students’ judgment of "the other." The IDI validates their approach, provided their students are at the polarization stage - it will be productive to discuss that as well as strategies for learners at other stages. I believe that part of their focus on commonalities is an appropriate response to where their students are at, but part of it may be that they are at the stage of minimizing cultural differences.

I am also looking forward to my own IDI survey results and taking advantage of the debrief. While I found most of the questions had a very definite "yes" or "no" in my mind, there were a couple I answered "somewhat" or neither/nor, etc. I want to look at those and find out if I have blind spots in those areas. I also want to get feedback from a professional on where I need to develop more awareness.

Citations:

Hammer, M. R. (2011). Additional cross-cultural validity testing of the Intercultural Development Inventory. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 35(4), 474–487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2011.02.014