Multicultural experience of college students

Miješanjem raznih tradicija, običaja i vrijednosti različitih kultura suvremena društva danas postaju sve više multikulturna. Komunikacija sa pripadnicima drugih kulturnih i etničkih grupa postaje uobičajena pa raste potreba za stjecanjem multikulturalnih kompetencija. Snažan faktor u stjecanju multikulturalnih ali i mnogih drugih kompetencija je multikulturalno iskustvo. Iz tog razloga cilj ovoga rada je istražiti pojavnost multikulturalnog iskustva kod studenata na Sveučilištu u Zadru. U teorijskom dijelu rada se iznose glavni pojmovi vezani za multikulturalno iskustvo počevši od kulture i multikulturalizma. U nastavku se objašnjava multikulturalno iskustvo koje se dijeli na ostvareno i željeno (otvorenost) multikulturalno iskustvo. U empirijskom dijelu rada se iznose rezultati istraživanja provedenog anketnim upitnikom na uzorku od 309 studenata, a kojim se mjerilo ostvareno multikulturalno iskustvo i otvorenost prema stjecanju takvog iskustva. Rezultati ukazuju na veliku pojavnost multikulturalnog iskustva kod ispitanika te da postoji razlika u pojavnosti na temelju spola, razine studija i završene srednje škole iako je ta razlika mala.By mixing of various traditions, customs and values of different cultures the contemporary society is becoming increasingly multicultural. Communication with members of other cultural and ethnic groups becomes more common and the need for multicultural competences is growing. A powerful factor in the acquisition of multicultural, but also many other, competences is a multicultural experience. For this reason, the goal of this paper is to explore the incidence of multicultural experience among students at the University of Zadar. Theoretical part of the paper presents the main concepts related to multicultural experience starting from culture and multiculturalism. After those concepts we explain the multicultural experience that is then divided on realized and desired (openness) multicultural experience and the variables within the research. The empirical part of the paper presents the results of a survey conducted by a questionnaire on 309 students, measuring the achieved multicultural experience and the openness to the experience itself. The results indicate a high incidence of multicultural experience among respondents and there is a difference in appearance based on gender, level of study and secondary school although this difference is small