| Abstract |
Although it seems clear that today’s adolescent students need more opportunities to develop positive global dispositions as part of their general education experience, to this point, far more attention has been given to the more essentialist aspects of global education, such as global knowledge and global skills. One potential reason for this discrepancy is the current lack of consensus regarding how to conceptualize and measure the effectiveness of educational initiatives designed to promote key attributes of a global disposition. Within this chapter, I unpack a popular theoretical framework from the field of intercultural education that I believe has great potential to help educators and educational researchers from many different subject areas develop and assess the effectiveness of learning experiences intended to cultivate positive global dispositions (Bennett MJ. Towards a developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. In: Michael Paige R (ed) Education for the intercultural experience. Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, pp 21–71, 1993; Bennett MJ. From ethnocentrism to ethnorelativism. In: Wurzel JS (ed) Toward multiculturalism. Intercultural Resource Corporation, Newton, pp 62–78, 2004). A general overview of Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) framework is presented and connections between the DMIS and global disposition are explored. Next, I illustrate common behavior patterns at each stage of the DMIS and provide suggestions for learning experiences that can foster intercultural sensitivity and emerging global dispositions. The chapter concludes with a review of relevant research in this area. |
