Intercultural Maturity: King & Baxter-Magolda's ICM Model
This paper examines the King and Baxter-Magolda multidimensional framework of intercultural maturity (ICM model), which describes how students develop cultural competence across early, intermediate, and advanced stages. Drawing parallels to Kohlberg's moral development and Piaget's cognitive development models, the paper outlines how learners progress from ethnocentric thinking to nuanced cross-cultural understanding. It also discusses LITERALIA, an EU-funded online language learning program designed to integrate technical language acquisition with intercultural competency. The paper concludes that intercultural maturity is not an automatic developmental process but must be consciously facilitated through structured educational opportunities and teacher commitment.
- Introduction: Intercultural Competence in Education: Rationale for intercultural competence amid globalization
- The ICM Model and Stages of Cultural Development: Three-stage ICM model with concrete student examples
- Integrating Language Learning with Intercultural Competency: LITERALIA program links language and cultural learning
- Facilitating Intercultural Learning in Educational Settings: Intercultural maturity requires conscious educational facilitation
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses well-known developmental frameworks (Piaget, Kohlberg) as analogies to make the ICM model immediately accessible to readers unfamiliar with intercultural theory.
- Grounds abstract developmental stages in concrete, relatable examples — such as stereotyping of Muslims or the phrase "can't we ignore color?" — which illustrate each stage clearly.
- Moves logically from theory to application, using the LITERALIA program as a real-world case that tests and confirms the model's predictions.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively uses comparative framing: by anchoring a lesser-known model (ICM) to established developmental theories (Piaget, Kohlberg), the author gives readers a familiar cognitive scaffold before introducing new content. This technique helps readers understand not just what the ICM model claims, but why it is theoretically credible.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a rationale for intercultural competence in globalized education, introduces the ICM model and its three developmental stages with supporting examples, then transitions to a real-world application (LITERALIA) that confirms the model's multi-level nature. It closes with a concise argument that intercultural maturity requires deliberate educational facilitation rather than natural developmental progression.
Introduction: Intercultural Competence in Education
In recent years, intercultural competence on an emotional and interpersonal level has been increasingly valued as an important attribute to foster in students, given the globalization of society. Education is not simply about imparting knowledge; it is also designed "to adequately prepare culturally competent citizens" (Perez, Shim, & Baxter-Magolda, 2015, p. 759). The King and Baxter-Magolda (2005) multidimensional framework of intercultural maturity (the ICM model) attempts to answer why some students seem innately more comfortable with multicultural settings. While some students have reported finding intercultural settings "generally threatening" and either feel "immobilized" or avoid them, others have reported "struggling with difference, but remained open to continuing to question their beliefs," while the most culturally competent "gained new insights into their own social identities despite the discomfort of diverse interactions" (Perez, Shim, & Baxter-Magolda, 2015, pp. 761–762). Just as with learning new concepts, some students appear innately more comfortable with confronting cultural similarities and dissimilarities.
The ICM Model and Stages of Cultural Development
The King and Baxter-Magolda model suggests that, much like Kohlberg's model of moral development or Piaget's model of cognitive development, there is a similar model for the acquisition of cultural competence (King, Perez, & Shim, 2013). For example, students in the early stages of cultural competence tend to view culture in an egocentric fashion, seeing it as either wrong or right, assuming that their own culture is the only correct model, and showing "difficulty recognizing the concept of culture beyond demography or geography" (Perez, Shim, & Baxter-Magolda, 2015, p. 765).
Students at this early stage often express the idea that all foreigners are alike, or assume that all members of an unfamiliar group — such as Muslims — share the same ideas (Perez, Shim, & Baxter-Magolda, 2015, p. 766). In their interpersonal interactions, they are more apt to stereotype individuals and to make snap judgments that certain cultures or attitudes are superior to others (Perez, Shim, & Baxter-Magolda, 2015, p. 770).
Students at the intermediate level may be naive about differences within groups — for example, between Muslims from different regions of the world — but show curiosity and open-mindedness about learning about different cultures (Perez, Shim, & Baxter-Magolda, 2015, p. 768). They are also more willing to acknowledge that differences exist, rather than adopting an attitude that "everyone is the same — can't we ignore color?"
Students at the most advanced level are able to apply different lenses with greater nuance. For example, they can understand the distinct perspective of a Muslim American versus an Iraqi Muslim, and also appreciate the differing perspectives of males and females within the same culture.
References
King, R., Perez, R., & Shim, W. (2013). How college students experience intercultural learning: Key features and approaches. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 6(2), 69–83. Retrieved from
Perez, R., Shim, W., King, P., & Baxter-Magolda, M. (2015). Refining King and Baxter-Magolda's model of intercultural maturity. Journal of College Student Development, 56(8), 759–776. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236750691_A_Developmental_Model_of_Intercultural_Maturity
Stickler, U. (2011). LITERALIA: Towards developing intercultural maturity online. Language Learning & Technology, 15(1), 147–168. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/february2011/stickleremke.pdf
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