A culture of respect on campus: how a university cultivates intercultural competence in a superinternational environment

This case study examines the role of transnational educational contexts in shaping student identity and fostering intercultural competence at Germany’s leading private university for international diversity. With 85% of its 2,000 students coming from over 120 countries and no single, dominant national culture, Constructor University (CU) offers a unique superinternational environment to study intercultural competence and identity formation. Based on 15 in-depth interviews with students and meetings with university staff, we examine how intercultural competence is fostered at CU through a mixture of structured intercultural training and everyday ongoing interaction. Students reported moving beyond national stereotypes to appreciate individuals for their personalities, articulating what some interviewees referred to as a ‘culture of respect’. Drawing on postcolonial theories of creolisation, we explore how this respect emerges in ‘everyday actions’ alongside – and sometimes in tension with – the university’s structured intercultural initiatives. Our findings highlight the critical role of internationalised higher education contexts in fostering robust intercultural competence among students and contributing to broader Sustainable Development Goals, as well as modelling peacebuilding in highly diverse contexts.