A social justice approach to develop intercultural communicative competence

This study examines the impact of implementing a social justice culture curriculum on learners’ development of the intercultural communicative competence (ICC) and on their desire to continue learning Spanish. Two types of culture instruction—a traditional curriculum centered around foreign Spanish-speaking countries and an experimental curriculum focused on US Hispanic/Latinx communities—were implemented in third and fourth Spanish courses at a US university in the Southwest. A survey was developed to measure participants’ (n = 264) ICC and intention to continue learning Spanish. Results indicate that both types of culture curriculum have a positive impact in the development of ICC cognitive domain, but only the US Hispanic/Latinx curriculum fosters development of the affective domain. None of the curricula impacted ICC behavioral domain or participants intention to continue studying Spanish. These results offer insights into ICC developmental path and provide evidence of the connection between the deforeignization of the curriculum and cognitive and affective dimensions of language learning.