A deeper understanding of intercultural communication has long been intertwined with international education efforts and internationalization strategies. Historically, intercultural competence has been grounded in a framework in which culture is reduced to a variable used interchangeably with the nation-state. Recently, intercultural competence has been encouraged through interventions in what has been described as a social constructivist paradigm. In this model, knowledge is construction through reflection. While both models are used in higher education programming, what happens when working with students who do not identify with the nation-state or whose conceptualization of knowledge is centered in relationships and community?
