| The extent to which college students acquire the knowledge, skills and awareness to behave in interculturally effective ways during college has direct implications for the quality of their citizenship in an increasingly diverse American society and interconnected world. This study sought to better understand the developmental mechanisms associated with achieving intercultural effectiveness and the nature of collegiate experiences that are effective in promoting this form of development for college students.;The theoretical basis for this study is constructive developmental and was informed by the human life span work of Kegan (1994), the college student development and self-authorship perspectives of Baxter Magolda (1999; 2001) and King and Baxter Magolda (2005), and by the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS; Bennett, 1986; 1993). The central research question that guided this study was: What student background characteristics and college diversity experiences promote college students' intercultural development?;This mixed methods study used data from the pilot study of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNSLAE), a cross-sectional study of 600 undergraduates from four institutions. A three-phase analytic plan was employed to explore students' patterns of engagement in collegiate diversity experiences, students' meaning making about their intercultural experiences, and connections between the quantitative and qualitative data.;Findings from this study demonstrate that many college students enter college with little diversity experience, and neither the racial composition of students' high schools nor the percentage of an institution's structural diversity were strong predictors of intercultural development. However, structural diversity played an important role with respect to the number and kinds of intercultural experiences reported by students who reported having a developmentally effective intercultural experience. Overall, the students in this study reported low levels of participation in the kinds of collegiate diversity experiences (e.g., diversity courses, service learning, and education abroad) that have been demonstrated to promote intercultural development. However, students who reported having had developmentally effective intercultural experiences utilized remarkably similar cognitive structures depending on their self-authorship orientation, and there were statistically significant differences in self-authorship levels relative to whether students reported having had developmentally effective intercultural experiences. |
