INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCES AND STUDENTS’ SOCIAL DISTANCE TOWARD MEMBERS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES

Abstract

The cultural diversity, as well as more and more intensive intercultural encounters are significant features of modern societies. Therefore, intercultural competences are more and more recognized as an important aspect of establishing quality international relationships. The aim of this research is the examination of intercultural competences of students as well as the level of the social distance to Romani people, Bosniaks, and Albanians in order to consider to which extent openness to cultural diversity is expressed through readiness to be involved in direct social relationships. The research was conducted in 2022/2023 school year on an appropriate and purposive sample of 236 Bachelor students at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Nis. Data were collected by the survey method, using a structured questionnaire. Intercultural competences are organized through three dimensions: knowledge, skills and attitudes. Social distance was measured by the modified Bogardus scale, adapted to the types of social relationships relevant to student population. The results show that students have relatively developed intercultural competences, but their individual dimensions are not displayed uniformly. Whereas skills and attitudes are mostly interculturally oriented, the results of knowledge dimension reveal more visible inconsistences. Simultaneously, differences in the levels of social distance to national minorities were shown, with the greatest shown to Albanians, and the lowest to Bosniaks. The findings indicate a need to analyze the openness to cultural diversity in the context of particular forms of closeness. These findings can be seen as an addition to a further empirical discussion on the content, structure and the ways of measuring intercultural competences.