Assessment of intercultural competence of vocational teachers in Croatia

Abstract

Due to the changes in society and the new era of “super-diversity” (Vertovec, 2007) in European countries, intercultural competence is gaining importance both in everyday life situations and teacher training. In the academic year of 2014/2105, a research was conducted on a sample of 136 prospective secondary school teachers undergoing their pedagogical-didactical-methodological training in different universities in the Republic of Croatia. The tool that was employed in the self-assessment of intercultural competence was called Recognising intercultural competence: What shows that I am interculturally competent? The results showed that the examinees perceive their intercultural competence quite high; attitudes (M = 4,09); skills (M = 4,12); knowledge (M = 4,02). There is no significant difference between the perceived dimensions (p = ,282). Further research is recommended to better understand the insights about the examinees’ understanding of intercultural competence.

Keywords

• intercultural competence
• intercultural education
• Republic Croatia
• vocational teachers