Intercultural education research is an attempt to explore events and meanings where intercultural contacts and exchanges take place in educational settings and seek for how to live with diverse people and cultures in peace. Therefore, what intercultural competence is becomes one of the most essential questions for the research community on intercultural education. This paper aims to provide an overview of issues and research on intercultural competence and discuss definitions of intercultural competence from diverse perspectives.

First, the importance of intercultural competence in this globalized and knowledge-based society is discussed. Second, research trends on intercultural competence are reviewed. Third, how to approach defining intercultural competence is presented. Fourth, the symposium entitled “Exploring Intercultural Competence: From Diverse Perspectives” of the 37th Annual Conference of the Intercultural Education Society of Japan is reported. Lastly, based on the discussion, “Appling Intercultural Competence: Toward the Practices of Intercultural Education” is proposed as a research topic for the next year.

This paper attempts to discuss and define intercultural competence and its components from the point of view of foreign language education at the secondary

level. Firstly, it reviews paradigm shifts in education around the world which focuses on cultivating students’ competencies to live in a global society, and

moves to review of discussions on intercultural competencies in the field of language education. Then, after describing practices of developing Japanese language teaching materials for secondary schools in overseas countries, this paper attempts to define intercultural competence as “an ability to collaborate with individuals who speak different language/s from oneself and to build better relationships among those individuals by utilizing all the knowledge and skills that

one has, using various languages such as target language, mother tongue, other commonly-shared languages, and non-verbal languages.” The components of this

ability are described under the three categories: Knowledge, Skill, and Attitude. However, this definition and these components are presented without any verification. Thus, continuous arguments and discussions are necessary for further development of the study of this topic.

The purpose of this study is to present a model conceptualizing intercultural competence represented by three categories (“Knowledge”, “Skill” and “Attitude”) in six developmental stages. The “Attitude” category consists of “Recognition”, “Feeling” and “Behavior”. The developments of perspective-taking ability, empathy and prosocial behavior in “Attitude” are indispensable through every life stage. Self-efficacy and resilience are based on “Attitude” abilities, and the learning of positive perception toward the self, as well as of concerning others, is important to bring up the “Attitude” abilities of intercultural competence.

The features in six development stages can be characterized with respect to the categories of intercultural competence as follows. 1) The category “Knowledge” is not dominant from 0 to about 4 years old. The abilities of empathy, modeling and prosocial behavior, which are based on hereditary factors in “Attitude,” play a major role of intercultural competence in this period. 2) The category “Attitude” is still dominant from about 5 to 9 years old. The cognitive development in this period is qualitatively changing, and the children of those ages become capable of taking others’ perspectives in some concrete situations. 3) The category “Knowledge” from about 10 to 15 years old is more dominant than in the earlier ages. The children in this period get the third-person and mutual perspective taking, and they can have the empathy to the person even in other cultures, whom they do not meet directly. 4) The percentages of the categories “Knowledge” and “Skill” are much more dominant in from about 16 to 22 years old than in the earlier ages. They get not only positive experiences of cultures, but also negative and various perspectives through education and studying abroad. Metacognition, in-depth and societal-symbolic perspective taking are key competences in the category “Attitude” in this period. Self-efficacy and resilience are also based on these competences. 5) The intercultural competence expected by the society varies in its environment, because each individual has various experiences in adulthood. The category “Skill” is much more dominant than in the earlier ages. 6) Curiosity and openness are needed for the older people to be competent in confronting some different cultures, because they tend to adhere to their conservative way of thinking, and it is hard to follow some unfamiliar ways. Older people requiring nursing by foreigners should have abilities of resilience and reconstruction for adapting to the intercultural environments.

Future research would require those factors to be taken into account: 1) background culture and the chronological contexts; 2) individual variations; 3) relationships between the environmental factors and the individual’s location in the group.

The Human Library is a practical event, aiming to “reduce the prejudice”, “break the emotional barrier” and “raise the acceptability to diversity” within one’s heart. Launched in Denmark in 2000, the event has successfully spread to more than 70 countries, including Japan, where it has been held as many as 60 times since December 2008.

Despite its simple mechanism, the Human Library is well-known among those who are concerned about its effectiveness of decreasing the emotional barrier between strangers and also bringing valuable new encounters and self-improvement to the participants. However, formal research and study have rarely been conducted.

To begin, this paper points out that the intercultural competence raised by the Human Library is not based on national or ethnic differences, but focuses on minorities nearby in one’s life, such as disabled people. Then it discusses the overall mechanism, which fulfills the 4 criteria required to effectively reduce general prejudice. The mechanism is explained in a 4-step model, referring to the Pettigrew model. The actual effect on the participants is also analyzed based on survey results. Finally, the paper clearly illustrates the development process of intercultural competence through the Human Library, from the aspects of knowledge, skills and behaviors.

All the empirical data used in the paper is based upon my 7-year practical study and the report documents, and also the results of the ongoing research project supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research.

This paper reports about the symposium which was held at J. F. Oberlin University in June, 2016. The theme was “Seeking the Intercultural Perspectives in Service Learning”. Though it was a new encounter of the Intercultural Education and Service Learning, there were common points to share between two.

This paper examines international students learning and the learning process in residence halls during their study abroad in Japan. Residence halls have been considered as “educational places” rather than just as sleeping places (Makita, 2013; Ogden Dewey & Kumai, 2011). However, previous researchers have found little consistent evidence of international students learning and its process in residence halls (Masamune, 2015).

In this study, five international students were interviewed about their learning experiences in residence halls. The results revealed five major learning categories; 1) understanding the meaning of living together, 2) becoming aware of interpersonal relationships, 3) understanding cultural and social aspects, 4) developing Japanese language, and 5) building self-management skills. Those learning categories were embedded in the process of participating in activities in residence halls. The results also showed that those residence halls provided a well-designed learning environment, which contained human, materials and activity resources. Thus, international students were able to access those resources whenever they needed and to improve their learning by sharing time, space, and mutual obligations.

The results indicate that it is necessary to understand the learning process and design of the learning environment in residence halls in order to lead to gains in rich learning experiences for international students.

After the OECD-PISA study pointed out that the academic performance of immigrant students was significantly lower than native students in Germany, concerned ministries and agencies have taken various measures to improve it. German language teaching, especially language education for small children, has been a central issue since then.

This study aims to examine how the language development of preschool-aged children with an immigrant background has been checked and encouraged in Germany. In Germany almost all the states (Länder) either screen or observe the language development of all children under school age regardless of immigrant background. In Hessen, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration (Hessisches Ministerium für Soziales und Integration) has recommended implementing a language development assessment called KiSS (Kinder-Sprachscreening-Child Speech Screening), which consists of questionnaires both to parents and kindergarteners and the assessment of dialogic language between children and their nursery teachers or medical staff officials. The unique point here is that unlike other states, this method is not mandatory. This discretion brought about two consequences: 1) diverse choices of an assessment method in each kindergarten have produced rich examples of profiles of kindergartens and language development techniques; 2) three quarters of kindergartens in Frankfurt failed to follow any standardized assessment procedure. Following this assessment, children who performed poorly were required to take preparation courses (Vorlaufkurs) offered by the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs (Hessisches Kultusministerium).

In this way this article clarified how preschool-aged children with an immigrant background in Hessen acquired German language skills with the support of the state government. The insights acquired in this case study analysis would be useful for constructing a similar program for children in Japan whose first language is not Japanese.

Indonesian nurse candidates are sent to Japan under the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed between Japan and Indonesia. The purpose of this study is to investigate the statistical relationship between their support needs and motives to apply for the EPA program. The questionnaire was completed by 117 Indonesian nurse candidates in Japan.

According to the factor analysis, five factors were found as their motives to apply: “acquisition of knowledge and experience for career”, “desire for the economic prosperity”, “interest in the EPA program between Japan and Indonesia”, “interest by the external factors”, and “inclination to move overseas.” In addition, five factors were found as their support needs: “understanding and handling their situation”, “enhancement of the learning environment and infrastructure”, “instruction of duties”, “providing the social and cultural information”, and “preparation for the national board examination.” Furthermore, multiple regression analyses were conducted to find out the respective effects on support needs; support needs were used as criterion variables, and motives to apply as explanatory variables. The results were as follows: (1) the candidates who applied with interest in the EPA program between Japan and Indonesia tended to need an enhanced learning environment and infrastructure, (2) the candidates who applied to gain economic prosperity tended to need instruction of duties, (3) the candidates who applied because they wanted to live in a foreign country tended to need Japanese social and cultural information, and (4) the candidates who applied to acquire knowledge and experience for their careers tended to need support to prepare for the national board examination.

The results of this study showed that the Indonesian nurse candidates’ motives to apply were related to their support needs and gives suggestions on how to support them effectively.