Cultural Distance and Intercultural Competency in International Service-Learning

Abstract

International service-learning aims to enhance students’ intercultural competency by immersing them in culturally diverse environments. This study investigates how cultural distance between students’ place of origin and their international service-learning location influences their self-reported changes in intercultural competency—measured across attitude and skill dimensions—in an academic service-learning course with projects conducted in multiple locations, including mainland China, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Using a pretest-posttest design and fixed effects regression analysis on data from 124 students, results show significant improvements across all self-reported intercultural competency dimensions. Furthermore, greater cultural distance is associated with larger self-reported gains in intercultural skills, while its moderating effect on attitude is not statistically significant. The findings from this study suggest that apart from providing an intercultural context, the degree of cultural difference serves as an important variable associated with changes in students’ self-reported intercultural gains—particularly for skills that are harder to teach in classroom-based training.