The Intercultural Sensitivity in Education: Critical Thinking, Use of Technology and Cyberbullying

Introduction. In a globalized world, it becomes increasingly relevant to study people’s levels of intercultural sensitivity, understood as the ability to know, appreciate and interact effectively with people from different cultures, particularly in cosmopolitan cities like Madrid. The study had thre...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Gómez Yepes, Talía, Etchezahar, Edgardo Daniel, Albalá Genol, Miguel Ángel, Maldonado Rico, Antonio
Format: article
Publication Date:2024
Country:España
Institution:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repository:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/719939
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/719939
https://dx.doi.org/10.25115/EJREP.V22I64.9710
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Ciberacoso
Nivel educacional
Pensamiento crítico
Sensibilidad Intercultural
Uso de la Tecnología en la Educación
Critical Thinking
Cyberbullying
Educational level
Intercultural Sensitivity
Use of Technology in Education
Educación
Description
Summary:Introduction. In a globalized world, it becomes increasingly relevant to study people’s levels of intercultural sensitivity, understood as the ability to know, appreciate and interact effectively with people from different cultures, particularly in cosmopolitan cities like Madrid. The study had three aims: first, to analyze the relationships between the different levels of interculturality sensitivity with sociodemographic variables, such as age, educational level and gender. Secondly, it is proposed to study the relationships between intercultural sensitivity, critical thinking and the use of technology in education. Finally, we analyze whether levels of intercultural sensitivity affect cyberbullying. Method. We worked with a non-probabilistic sample of 835 participants who live in the city of Madrid, aged between 18 and 65 years old (M = 40.85; SD = 14.01) and 55.2% of the participants identified as woman. Results. The main results indicated that there are differences between the dimensions of intercultural sensitivity, the educational level of the participants, gender and age. The higher the educational level, the greater intercultural sensitivity, also women presented higher levels compared to men and at a younger age, lower levels of intercultural sensitivity. Likewise, the dimensions of intercultural sensitivity were significantly and positively related to the levels of critical thinking of the participants and the use of technology in the educational field, that is, the greater the critical thinking and agreement with the use of technology, the greater the levels of intercultural sensitivity. Finally, significant differences were observed with respect to cyberbullying. That is, people who did not experience cyberbullying have higher levels of intercultural sensitivity compared to those who did. Discussion and Conclusion. This study provides crucial initial insights for future research, demonstrating that enhanced intercultural sensitivity is linked to higher education, female gender, and younger age, and positively correlates with critical thinking and technology use in education. Notably, it also suggests a significant relationship between high intercultural sensitivity and reduced cyberbullying. The scope and limitations of the study are discussed, as well as the relationships with other psychosocial variables