It was neither Confucian nor confusion: dynamics of intercultural sensitivity among East-Asian students at Canadian universities

Abstract

International students from Confucian heritage culture countries are often perceived by westerners as having low intercultural communication competence (ICC) (Zhu & Bresnahan, 2018). In popular media and mainstream cultural-psychological research, Confucian culture is often the scapegoat for subjecting East Asian international students (EAISs) to cultural archetypes of reticence, obedience, unassailability, and similar. In the present study, intercultural sensitivity was used to measure the affective domain of ICC, and quantitative analyses were performed to investigate 1) whether international students (EAISs vs non-EAISs) reported different capacities of intercultural sensitivity in cross-cultural interaction. 2) Did EAISs particularly identify with Confucian values as widely perceived? 3) Did EAISs rate stronger social confusion than non-EAISs that may contribute to low ICC? 4) How did social and cultural factors of international students’ adjustment impact their intercultural sensitivity? A total of 120 international students enrolled at Canadian universities completed an online questionnaire. The results of the group comparison show that there was no difference in intercultural sensitivity and identification of Confucian cultural attributes between EAISs and non-EAISs. However, non-EAISs unexpectedly reported much higher social confusion than EAISs, as measured by culture shock and language apprehension. [...]