Transcending the culturalist impasse in stays abroad: Helping mobile students to appreciate diverse diversities

This article, which is based on research carried out on various aspects of student mobility in Europe, and more precisely in Finland, aims to go beyond the ‘myths’ related to study abroad and examine how mobile students can develop competences that can aid them when dealing with various aspects of the experience. This article also calls for a change in the manner in which we consider intercultural communication, by adopting an approach which concentrates solely on the analysis of identity (co-)construction—a key element in the development of noticing strategies used by interlocutors to “dramatize themselves.” Based on a model of intercultural competences called proteophilic competences (Dervin, 2007c), this article will demonstrate how the model can be applied and used by students to go from the “commodification of intercultural understanding’ (Dahlén, 1997, p. 176) to the appreciation of one’s own diversity and that of others.

- basic skills in intercultural communication;

- understanding of mobile learning as a source of diversity and complexity;

- theoretical knowledge about identity problems in student mobility;

- definition and justification of proteophilic competences;

- practical knowledge about methods of intercultural communication.