PhD Project: Developing intercultural competences: A study of implementation of Chinese language and culture activities at school level

This PhD project aims at exploring how the implementation of Chinese language and culture activities as a part of an internationalisation process at school level can facilitate the students’ development of intercultural competences and world-mindedness. The study will combine literature studies within a theoretical framework of intercultural competence, learning, and culture with empirical studies based on the Confucius Institute at AAU’s activities within the local primary and lower secondary school context. The empirical data will be collected based on a mixed methods approach and will include ethnographic methods such as qualitative interviews/focus group interviews, participant observations, qualitative questionnaires, and portfolio.

The expected outcomes of the PhD project are to:

1) Introduce the student benefits and drawbacks from Chinese language and culture teaching in terms of intercultural competence development.
2) Get results that might be interesting in order to discuss internationalisation at primary and lower secondary school level that includes Chinese language and culture activities.
3) Pioneer intercultural competence theory into the field of Chinese language and culture activities at primary and lower secondary school level.
4) Know about the pros and cons of focusing more explicitly on intercultural competence development among primary and lower secondary school students involved in Chinese language and culture activities.