Cross-cultural competence in multicultural education in Indonesian and New Zealand high schools

Abstract

Equality in education is one of major concerns in culturally diverse societies like Indonesia and New Zealand. To achieve it, implementing multicultural education in senior high schools is an option. This research aims to reveal the students’ cross-cultural competence and to investigate the schools’ strategies in implementing multicultural education in senior high schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Auckland, New Zealand. The study used a concurrent embedded mixed-method design. The participants were 110 students and 24 teachers from 4 senior high schools in Yogyakarta, and 110 students and 10 teachers from 2 senior high schools in Auckland. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed to students, interviews with teachers, and class observations. The data collected were those related to the practices of multicultural education in these schools. The results show that the cross-cultural competence of Indonesian and New Zealand students is quite similar even though the practices of multicultural education are different in these countries. These differences occur due to the higher social and cultural diversity experienced by Indonesian students.