Abstract

SANHUEZA HENRIQUEZ, Susan; CARDONA MOLTO, Cristina  and  FRIZ CARRILLO, Miguel. Intercultural sensitivity amongst primary and secondary education pupils in the province of Alicante (Spain). Perfiles educativos [online]. 2012, vol.34, n.136, pp.8-22. ISSN 0185-2698.

This study offers an evaluation of the intercultural sensitivity of primary and secondary education pupils (namely 389) who live in the Spanish province of Alicante and analyzes thoroughly ethnic, age, and gender differences. The authors adapted the original Chen and Starosta scale (2000) and analyzed their psychometric properties; thanks to this factorial analysis they could group the 22 resulting items into two factors, and this made possible to distinguish a positive emotional answer towards intercultural relations from a negative one. The results show that the participating pupils use to have a good intercultural sensitivity and that the main difficulties that show up when trying to achieve a true communicative encounter are to be associated with linguistic differences and attitudes of insecurity towards communication. The differences that can be observed amongst groups (gender, origin, and educational degree) seem to suggest thepromotion of intervention programs in order to achieve the development of specific abilities for intercultural communicative competence within the regular curriculum.

Keywords : Sensitivity; Intercultuml; Immigrants; Communication; Diversity.

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