The relationships of intercultural competence, acculturation attitudes, and the creativity of Russian students

On December 18 Bultseva M. (trainee researcher, postgraduate student of the National Research Institute of Higher School of Economics) took part in the "Culture matters" research seminar with the report "The relationships of intercultural competence, acculturation attitudes, and the creativity of Russian students".

Creativity is one of the key competencies of modern people and raising its level is important and significant not only at the individual level, but also for the successful functioning of society as a whole. Therefore, at present, higher educational institutions, in addition to educational goals, also have the task of developing the creativity of their students but how can you accomplish this task? One of the important factors for the development of creativity is the obtaining of intercultural experience, for example, during the passage of foreign internships or during training under international exchange programs. However, students studying in Russia may, under certain conditions, benefit from the so-called “home internationalization”. The basis of the present study was the idea that the multicultural context of the educational environment itself can make a positive contribution to the solution of this problem. The results of an empirical study conducted on a sample of Russian students (N = 272) showed that the acculturation expectations of how foreign students should behave (multiculturalism contributes to higher levels of creativity) have an important, though ambiguous, role for creativity while the melting pot and the exclusion impede), as well as intercultural competences (positive attitudes towards other cultures are positively associated with creativity, adaptation of communication skills - negative). The results were discussed in connection with the peculiarities of the Russian educational context.