Intercultural Friendships

Intercultural friendship is known to reduce prejudice and foster international goodwill. Yet, intercultural friendship is not commonplace due to a complex interplay of factors that either foster or hinder friendship formation across cultures. Among these factors are the similarity or difference in cultural values, friendship patterns, and communication styles, as well as the extent of intercultural and communicative competence, cross-cultural knowledge, personality, identity, motivation, attitudes, opportunity, and receptivity. Intercultural friendship has intersections with interethnic and interracial friendship, but differs in crucial aspects. Whereas scholarship on intercultural friendship focuses on friendships across macro-cultural lines demarcated by nationality and often language, research on interethnic friendship focuses on ethnicities within a common domestic culture, and scholarship on interracial friendship critically examines interpersonal relationships in contexts marked by racism and discrimination. Intercultural friendship often occurs between sojourners or migrants and host nationals. Especially college campuses are a prime location for intercultural contact, as students of various backgrounds, unencumbered by family and career obligations, intermingle. As a result, much of the research on intercultural friendship focuses on the experiences of international students studying abroad. With English-speaking countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, being among the top destination countries for international students worldwide, scholarship on intercultural friendship is especially abundant in these countries. Because differences in cultural values and friendship patterns constitute a major obstacle to intercultural friendship formation, an integrally connected area of investigation is that of cross-cultural friendship patterns (i.e., the comparison of friendship patterns in different cultures). Due to the complex nature of the phenomenon of intercultural friendship, the field is multidisciplinary and includes scholarship in anthropology, applied linguistics, communication studies, education, psychology, and sociology, among others.