Writing for Intercultural Growth on Study Abroad in Australia

For students participating in study abroad programs seemingly familiar environs, ongoing cultural mentoring is critically important. This looks at intercultural development using both the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and qualitative analysis of reflective writing assignments. U.S. participants a semester-long faculty-led program Australia experienced significant growth as measured by IDI. Four prompts were analyzed terms how well they correlated with student IDI Developmental Orientation (DO) scores. Written reflection reveals write about issues different developmental stages. Some found to facilitate development, allowing ‘write beyond’ their DO While sojourners effectively wrote cross-cultural pertaining host environment, more ethnocentric thinking was revealed when asked reflect on conflicts home community. The findings illustrate that achievable culturally linguistically similar country, carefully designed can meaningful growth.