You are invited to participate in a research study titled “The contribution of intercultural capital to the development of intercultural competence of educators: Exploring professional narratives in Greece & Australia”.This study is conducted by the visiting PhD Student Spyridoula Giaki at the University of Melbourne and it is supervised by Assistant Professor Eugenia Arvanitis (Department of Educational Sciences & Early Childhood Education at the University of Patras).
In this study you will be asked to a) take part in an audio-recorded interview reflecting on your upbringing (family resources, culture, education, networking) and the way it shaped your capacity of handling diversity in general and in your classroom practice (approximately 45-60 minutes); b) complete the Intercultural Development Inventory® (IDI®) assessment, the premier cross-cultural assessment of intercultural competence that is used by thousands of individuals and organizations to build intercultural competence to achieve international and domestic diversity and inclusion goals and outcomes (approximately 15-20 minutes); and c) complete an online survey about measuring intercultural capital (approximately 15 minutes).
Your decision to participate or decline participation in this study is completely voluntary. If you agree to participate, you will also be free to stop participating at any time.
Your participation in this research will benefit you personally, as you will be able to review your Individual Profile report of the IDI that provides key insights into how you make sense of cultural differences and commonalities and design and implement your own Intercultural Development Plan® (IDP®) with a qualified IDI administrator.
By completing your Individual Development Plan, you can:
• Gain insights concerning intercultural challenges you are facing and identify intercultural competence development goals that are important for you,
• Gain increased understanding of how your Developmental Orientation impacts how you perceive and respond to cultural differences and commonalities, and
• Identify and engage in targeted, developmental efforts that increase your intercultural competence in bridging across diverse communities.
As a part of the process, we would like your permission to analyze your interview/ text/survey responses. The research findings will be used to the above PhD dissertation and may be shared in presentations, journal articles, or other academic publications. All data will be aggregated and/or anonymized for the purposes of research analysis and reporting.
If you have questions about this project, you may contact Spyridoula Giaki, spgiaki@upatras.gr or the supervising Professor Eugenia Arvanitis, earvanitis@upatras.gr.