Funding: This paper is supported by the 2025 Quality Engineering Project of Shenzhen Polytechnic University, School-level (General) Teaching and Research Project (7025310523).
Abstract
The accelerating global circulation of images places unprecedented intercultural demands on early-career artists and designers. Yet Chinese foundation-level studio courses, shaped by decades of examination culture, continue to privilege technical replication over cultural reflexivity. Guided by Byram’s five-component Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) model and Deardorff’s pyramid refinement, this study investigates whether a purpose-built, 16-week “dialogic studio” module can foster measurable intercultural competence among first-year undergraduates. Sixty students (41 female, 19 male; mean age = 18.7 years) completed a mixed-methods research protocol: a 25-item ICC questionnaire in weeks 1 and 16, weekly reflective journals, three checkpoints of artwork documentation, and 30 hours of audio-recorded critique sessions. Quantitative analysis yielded significant gains (p < .001) on all five ICC dimensions, with the largest increases in attitudes (+27 %) and skills of discovery & interaction (+24 %). Qualitative data confirmed a clear trajectory from ornamental motif borrowing in week 3 to historically grounded cultural synthesis by week 14; 77 % of final projects explicitly problematised power relations such as colonial trade, gendered orientalism, or digital cultural appropriation. The paper contributes a six-phase pedagogical framework that links affective priming, comparative inquiry, collaborative making, and critical reflection to distinct ICC outcomes. Policy implications include the need to embed intercultural learning objectives into accreditation standards and to reward process documentation rather than the final artefact alone. While single-site sampling limits generalisability, the study demonstrates that purposeful studio design can move students beyond token multiculturalism toward transformative intercultural artistry.
References
Bennett, M. J. (1993). Towards ethnorelativism: A developmental model of intercultural sensitivity. In R. M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (pp. 21-71). Intercultural Press.
Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence: Revisited. Multilingual Matters.
Chatterjee, A., & Vartanian, O. (2022). Neuroaesthetics: A burgeoning field and its implications for art education. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(6), 512-523.
Chen, G. M., & Starosta, W. J. (2021). Intercultural communication competence: A synthesis. In L. A. Samovar, R. E. Porter, & E. R. McDaniel (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 215-227). Cengage.
Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalisation. Journal of Studies in International Education, 24(1), 241-266.
Fang, K. (2020). Tensions in aesthetic socialization: Negotiating competence and differentiation in Chinese art test-prep schools. Poetics, 79, 101443.
Gonçalves, S., & Majhanovich, S. (2016). Art and intercultural dialogue. Springer Nature.
Lähdesmäki, T., & Koistinen, A.-K. (2021). Explorations of linkages between intercultural dialogue, art, and empathy. In F. Maine & M. Vrikki (Eds.), Dialogue for Intercultural Understanding: Placing Cultural Literacy at the Heart of Learning (pp. 45-58). Springer.
Li, X., Ren, J., & Sun, L. (2024). Intercultural dialogue in art education: Practices and reflections on the integration of Chinese and foreign art. Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, 45, 241-248.
Luo, Y. (2024). Challenges and Strategies for Cultivating Critical Thinking in Chinese Art Education. Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, 26, 323-332.
Niu, Y. X. (2024). The role of diversified international cultural and art education in cultural exchange. Cultural Exchange, 9, 160-165.
Shin, R., & Yang, X. (2021). Culturally Responsible Approach to Teaching East Asian Art in the Classroom. Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 38(1), 122-135.
Williams, L. (2023). Promoting cultural diversity and inclusion through arts education: Celebrating identities, challenging stereotypes, and building intercultural understanding. Journal of Arts, Society, and Education Studies, 5(4), 159.