Cultural Intelligence in the Diverse Classroom

It cannot be denied that our world has become increasingly interconnected. Improvements in transportation together with advances in technology have provided opportunities for individuals to explore the world beyond geographic and economic boundaries. Add in a global pandemic that forced individuals to interact via the Internet and you see the further erosion of boundaries and a recognition that life today can be essentially flat. A flattened world has fewer borders and allows for a fluid flow of people, goods, and services across national boundaries. To be successful in this flattened world, individuals must be culturally competent. Cultural competence is the ability to fluidly interact with individuals from other cultures and diverse backgrounds (Villagran & Hawamdeh, 2020). The purpose of this study was to identify if immigrant students lived multicultural experiences provided them with the competencies necessary for successful participation in an interconnected world. Participants were high school students in a large, diverse suburban public high school in the Northeast United States. Surveys were administered in-class via pencil and paper to students in general education and bilingual Social Studies classes. This non-experimental study utilized Earley and Ang's (2003) Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) to assess student's global competencies. The results of the study revealed that a student's immigrant generational status is related to their level of cultural intelligence. These results suggest that immigrant students, compared to their nonimmigrant peers, may already have the globally desired skills, values, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to be highly successful leaders of tomorrow.