Creating Spaces for International and Multi(inter)cultural Perspectives in Undergraduate Public Relations Education

Abstract

Public relations educators and practitioners in the United States increasingly voice the need to bridge the gap between current undergraduate curricular content and the international and multi(inter)cultural complexities of today's industry. However, students' views on this topic have not been studied. In-depth responses were elicited from a purposive sample of undergraduate public relations students at a large Midwestern state university. The findings indicate that students are far from apathetic about multicultural and international learning. They feel that the current public relations curriculum does not help enhance a sense of global and cultural connectedness, however. They cite certain curricular and structural impediments to expanding their multicultural and international competence. They express the desire to learn, to provide self-reflexive accounts that elucidate the sociocultural contexts of such pedagogy, and to engage in multicultural and international experiential learning.