Towards Intercultural Competence : The Development of Intercultural Sensitivity of Host Families

This paper examines a rather underresearched area, namely how intercultural sensitivity of people develops due to a peculiar intercultural encounter i.e. hosting an exchange student, and strives to provide explanation for this development by finding correlations between this and personal factors. In order to complete this task, a longitudinal, qualitative research, based on the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity by Milton Bennett, is used and is conducted on host families within AFS Hungary. The first part of this thesis discusses the theoretical background of the research. It highlights the significance and the conceptualization of intercultural sensitivity, explaining the difference among intercultural awareness, intercultural sensitivity, and intercultural competence and introducing some models of intercultural competence, with a special focus on the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity. Furthermore, it mentions a couple of instruments for the assessment of intercultural sensitivity. The second part of the paper discusses the research process in length, introducing the participants and the analytical tools that have been used. By the results of the research, the thesis aims to prove the complex nature of intercultural sensitivity and the effect of different cultures on it. At the end, the need for developing intercultural sensitivity is articulated, and some possible ways for its conscious development are mentioned as well.