TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schwarzenthal, Miriam
A1  - Schachner, Maja Katharina
A1  - Juang, Linda P.
A1  - van de Vijver, Fons J. R.
T1  - Reaping the benefits of cultural diversity
BT  - Classroom cultural diversity
JF  - European journal of social psychology
N2  - Culturally diverse schools may constitute natural arenas for training crucial intercultural skills. We hypothesized that a classroom cultural diversity climate fostering contact and cooperation and multiculturalism, but not a climate fostering color-evasion, would be positively related to adolescents’ intercultural competence. Adolescents in North Rhine-Westphalia (N = 631, Mage = 13.69 years, 49% of immigrant background) and Berlin (N = 1,335, Mage = 14.69 years, 52% of immigrant background) in Germany reported their perceptions of the classroom cultural diversity climate and completed quantitative and qualitative measures assessing their intercultural competence. Multilevel structural equation models indicate that contact and cooperation, multiculturalism, and, surprisingly, also color-evasion (as in emphasizing a common humanity), were positively related to the intercultural competence of immigrant and non-immigrant background students. We conclude that all three aspects of the classroom climate are uniquely related to aspects of adolescents’ intercultural competence and that none of them may be sufficient on their own.
KW  - color-evasion
KW  - contact
KW  - intercultural competence
KW  - multiculturalism
KW  - school climate
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2617
SN  - 0046-2772
SN  - 1099-0992
VL  - 50
IS  - 2
SP  - 323
EP  - 346
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -