Democracy Across Difference: Why Intercultural Competence Matters

Recently, my spouse and I watched several Netflix documentary series about different U.S. presidents. They’ve prompted me to reflect on the democratic ideals associated with this country’s founding—freedom, justice, and equality for all—and on an important but seldom made connection: moving closer to those ideals requires us to grow our intercultural competence, individually and collectively.

These ideals are tied, at least in part, to a national story shaped by immigration and cultural diversity. They’re also among the things that make me proud to be a U.S. American. Yet from the beginning, the country’s aspirations existed alongside profound contradictions. For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” while enslaving other human beings. The ideals were expansive; the circle of people permitted to claim them was not.

Our society has made meaningful progress toward greater equality for African Americans, women, and other historically marginalized groups. At the same time, access to equality, liberty, and justice remains uneven. These principles still function as ideals toward which to work, not realities we’ve consistently achieved.

The United States often touts itself as a “melting pot.” The phrase gained prominence through a 1908 play of the same name, which embraced a vision of the U.S. as “a nation in which all ethnic differences would mix, and from which a new person, superior to all, would emerge” (Banks, 2016, p. 43).

The problem is that the melting pot has often functioned less as a description of reality than as an expectation of assimilation. Rather than consistently honoring difference, U.S. institutions have frequently pressured people to shed languages, traditions, and ways of being that didn’t align with dominant norms. In practice, the ideal of becoming one people has too often asked those outside the dominant group to do most of the changing.

As the limitations of assimilation have become more apparent, a different ideal has gained traction: cultural pluralism. Cultural pluralism holds that distinct groups can maintain meaningful cultural identities while participating fully in a shared democratic society. From this perspective, the goal isn’t to erase difference in pursuit of unity, but to build a form of unity capable of holding difference. James Banks (2016), often called the father of multicultural education, argues that political democracy must also be cultural democracy.

A pluralistic society that works, then, isn’t one in which differences merely coexist side by side. It’s one in which people can remain connected across those differences, participate equitably in shared institutions, and make decisions about their common life together.

It’s a hopeful vision, but not yet an achieved reality. We shouldn’t mistake having an ideal for knowing how to realize it. As education and psychology professor Daryl G. Smith (2020) observes, few of us have actually experienced a pluralistic society that works. The question isn’t whether pluralism sounds desirable; it’s how we build communities, institutions, and societies where difference can be honored while shared commitments remain strong.

If pluralism remains more aspiration than reality, it’s partly because we haven’t yet solved the challenge of cohesion. How do we create a shared sense of “we” without requiring some people to become less fully themselves? How do we sustain common purpose when people bring different histories, identities, commitments, and ways of making meaning into public life? These aren’t abstract questions for higher education; they show up in our classrooms, curricula, hiring practices, campus traditions, and approaches to decision-making. Banks (2016) notes that pluralism has not fully explained how a deeply diverse society can sustain a shared collective life. That challenge helps explain why Smith (2020) calls functional pluralism “one of the foremost challenges of our day” (p. vii).

The task, then, involves moving beyond an either/or mentality. Rather than pitting national identity against racial, ethnic, or other cultural identities, we can help people “develop a delicate balance of cultural, national, regional, and global identifications” (Banks, 2016, p. 127; italics in original). Put differently, we need to learn how to live and work together across important differences without erasing or flattening them.

This is where intercultural competence becomes essential: it expands our capacity to engage effectively, appropriately, and authentically across cultural differences, both locally and globally. Intercultural competence isn’t simply a moral aspiration; it’s also a practical capacity that can help democratic institutions function more equitably. For colleges and universities, that raises a consequential question: What might change if we treated intercultural learning not as an optional addition, but as part of the core educational work we’re here to do?

References

Banks, J. A. (2016). Cultural diversity and education (6th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Smith, D. G. (2020). Diversity’s promise for higher education: Making it work (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Photo credit: Caleb Weiner, Unsplash