Benefits of Developing Friendships with International Partner Students in a Global Understanding Course
Abstract
This study used assessment data from a Global Understanding (GU) course to examine the impact of intercultural interaction when students feel that they have developed close friendships. The GU course follows empirically-based guidelines for reducing prejudice, and even though it provides students with a unique opportunity to interact with different cultural groups, this contact does not automatically benefit all students. However, when students develop close friendships with their international partners during the GU course, as many of these students do, then they reap the benefits described in the research literature as important for reducing prejudice—increased knowledge about outgroups, decreased communication anxiety, and increased perspective taking.
Published
Issue
Section
The Global Partners in Education Journal (the “Publisher”) and the Author(s) agree as follows:
1. Author(s) hereby grant to Publisher all right, title, and interest in and to the Work, including copyright to all means of expression by any method now known or hereafter developed, including electronic format. If Publisher does not publish the Work within two (2) years of the Effective Date, copyright shall revert back to the Author. Publisher agrees to always credit Author(s) as the author(s) of the Work.
2. Publisher hereby grants Author a royalty-free, limited license for the following purposes, provided the Work is always identified as having first been published by Publisher.
• The right to make and distribute copies of all or part of the Work for use in teaching;
• The right to use all or part of the material contained in the Work in a book by the Author(s), or in a collection of the Author(s)’s work;
• The right to use and distribute the Work internally at the Author(s)’s place of employment, and for promotion and any other non-commercial purposes;
• The right to use figures and tables from the Work for any purpose;
• The right to make presentations of material from the Work;
• The right to use and distribute the Work on the Author(s)’s Web site and on the Author(s)’s university’s institute repository;
Such license shall be effective when the Work is first published in the Journal of Curriculum and Instruction.
3. The Author(s) represents and warrants that the Work: (a) is the Author(s)’s original work and that Author(s) has full power to enter into this agreement; (b) does not infringe the copyright or property right of another; (c) contains no materials which is obscene, libelous, defamatory or violates another’s civil right, right of privacy, or is otherwise unlawful; and (d) has not been previously published, in whole or in part. Author(s) shall indemnify and hold Publisher harmless against loss or expenses arising from breach of any such warranties.
