{"pk":2538,"title":"Cross-Cultural Understanding in Immersion Students: A Mixed Methods Study","subtitle":null,"abstract":"This mixed methods study explored the development of cross-cultural understanding in a unique population of students in the U.S.: English-dominant students who had attended French or Spanish elementary immersion schools.  Despite the fact that immersion schools have as a goal cross-cultural understanding and appreciation and affirmation of diversity, research has shown that this goal is not always met.  This study featured one hundred thirty-one students from five immersion schools who responded to surveys, and 33 of those students who were interviewed.  Data analysis procedures included a theme analysis of the interviews, a statistical analysis of the surveys, and an integrated consideration of the findings.  It was found in both the quantitative and the qualitative data that the successful development of cross-cultural understanding in these immersion students was not necessarily a function of school activities.  These students did not receive the same messages about the target culture(s), nor did they understand the concept of culture in the same way.  However, cross-cultural understanding was certainly attainable, particularly with extracurricular exposure to the target language and culture, like living with members of the target culture(s) or undertaking meaningful travel experiences.","language":"en","license":null,"keywords":[{"word":"immersion education"},{"word":"Foreign language education"},{"word":"motivation"},{"word":"Culture"},{"word":"mixed methods"},{"word":"Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education"}],"section":"Article","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/23v8615w","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Pamela","middle_name":"M.","last_name":"Wesely","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Iowa","department":"None"}],"date_submitted":"2011-02-03T22:06:18Z","date_accepted":"2011-02-03T22:06:18Z","date_published":"2012-08-06T18:57:15+01:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"","type":"","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/2538/galley/1542/download/"},{"label":"","type":"","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/l2/article/2538/galley/1543/download/"}]}