Intercultural development is the underlying skillset and approach to cultural commonalities and differences. If diversity is being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance, intercultural development is recognizing that people may dance differently, enjoy different music or snacks, or be more or less comfortable interacting with members of another gender.

Intercultural development helps people to recognize their own cultural identity, how we experience the world through our own cultural identity, and our limitations in understanding another’s experience.  This helps us to be more curious about another’s experience rather than assuming knowledge about different cultures, operating from a cultural status quo, or relying on bias and stereotypes.

Intercultural development is the foundation of diversity, equity, and inclusion work.  We use five core competencies to develop cultural self-awareness and our own limitations in understanding and noticing patterns in assumptions, biases, and power dynamics.  Without this foundational work we are not able to appropriately understand the weight of cultural differences or the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion work.

Our program is based on Intercultural Development and uses the Intercultural Development Inventory^TM  (IDI) as a measurement tool.  The IDI is an assessment of a person’s mindset related to culture. This mindset encompasses a person’s attitudes and beliefs related to cultural difference, their ability to see the complexity, nuance, and depth of cultural difference, and their skills in interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds.