Introduction and Aim

The social, cultural and linguistic diversity in our globalised society leads to the increasing heterogeneity of life plans and family realities. This is also reflected in classrooms. Intercultural education enables both teachers and learners to deal respectfully with diversity in a multicultural society. Intercultural education directs the attention of teachers and learners to (historical and current) processes of social change, such as migration movements from the global south to Europe, emigration processes in rural regions and population increases in urban areas, diverse biographies and life plans, intergenerational and social aspects (Hua et al. 2017). At the same time, it reacts in an educationally appropriate manner to the challenges and opportunities that result from this in the education system. The importance of intercultural competence is becoming increasingly clear in our globalising world. It plays an unavoidable role in private and professional life as well as in school life and is understood as a key qualification. Intercultural competence describes a socio-cultural orientation ability and includes, among other things, the perception of similarities and differences between different cultures; it should enable a healthy coexistence of cultural, ethnic and religious majorities and minorities (Coroban, 2018). As an important area of society, the school should convey, support and promote intercultural competence. It is therefore important to find out whether the teaching of intercultural competence among teachers in schools takes place at all and in what framework. Since this task was assigned to the school's years ago and clear objectives were even given with the introduction of the educational standards, it is interesting to find out whether the schools have meanwhile taken on the topic of interculturality and to what extent it is now being implemented (Zhu et al. 2017). As an extremely ambiguous and accordingly controversial concept, the concept of culture is difficult to grasp: At the moment caught between a discouragingly broad and an excruciatingly narrow concept of culture and [it must] be the most pressing goal in this area of intercultural engagement to go beyond both.

The research study on Intercultural Communication and Education is interdisciplinary and is mainly fed by the subjects of education and social sciences. The thematic objects are in the field of social diversity that has arisen through mobility, migration, globalisation and individualisation and its effects on the processes of upbringing and education. The aim is to find a scientific approach to an intercultural oriented education that can be viewed and understood against the background of increasing socio-economic and linguistic-cultural diversification and hybridisation of social, cultural, media and linguistic processes (Aba, 2016). This gives rise to fields of application in the context of intercultural communication and international cooperation (such as mediation and advice) or linguistic education under the conditions of bilingual and multilingualism (Lee, 2018). The subject is 'more research-oriented' and at the same time offers specific career orientations through the possible profiles: The course acquires the necessary theoretical and methodological skills that enable scientific research in the field of intercultural communication and education as well as programs, concepts and to assess and design measures in the British education system, but also in the context of national and international education.

Research Questions

In order to investigate the effectiveness of intercultural communication and engagement to improve the level of learning of international students within the context of universities in the UK, the following will be the research questions;

• Why has an understanding of various cultures become the necessity for University's staff in the UK to provide effective education to foreigners?
• What are the various notions of natures of cultures have existed in educations that bring challenges for the universities?
• How universities within the context of the UK need to improve intercultural communication to enhance the education level of international students?

Background and Originality

Immigration is not a new concept within the context of European societies, and the same applies to cultural diversity. Because of increase in globalisation, cultural pluralism and immigration have been reinforced in the European cities particularly people from all over the world wants to live and educate their children in the UK because of high-class education systems and universities (Ganassin, 2019). Thus, young people in the UK have been called upon in their adult lives to live in conditions of cultural pluralism, irrespective of the movement of the population by immigration. Due to intensive immigration in the UK, approximately 15% of the population in the schools are not UK native (Baker, 2016). The research study of Baker (2009), within the context of the UK, there has been an increased emphasis on the cultural aspects of English language teaching. In this way, there is a need to understand the relationship between the cultures of the students who come from different parts of the world, and languages in terms of intercultural communication. However, the research study of Baker (2009) has highlighted the need for cultural awareness among the students as an approach to equipping learners of English for the diversity of intercultural communication.

Although intercultural communication and engagement are based on the study and understanding of the culture that exists within a larger culture, and it determines the way how that communication is managed and negotiated. However, the facet of intercultural communication requires a lens to examine the power dynamics that exist between a culture (Lee and Gyogi, 2018). In other words, various researchers have employed a critical cultural perspective in intercultural communication and engagement (Reynolds, 2018). While some scholars look at how marginalised groups challenge the hierarchy and how they maintain their culture through communication (Holmes, 2017). For instance, Critical Race Theory analyses the level of racism and examine how racism has been working in modern societies. This theory postulates that racism is a simple component of everyday life, which has become quite challenging to handle and addressed (Jin, 2017). Furthermore, this theory also demonstrates that racism policies within the societies support the development of a dominant group, and few members of the dominant group are interested in reducing racism from culture to smooth the communication. In addition to this, the research study of Dunford et al. (2015) has demonstrated that intercultural engagement is considered as a toolkit for educational staff in Higher Education Institutes in terms of utilising a wide range of disciplines. Moreover, the research study also highlights that the Education System in the UK is continuously grappling with two dominant factors, such as an increase in the number of non-UK students, and preparing students for globalised. In a similar perspective, the research study of Gu and Maley (2008) argue that the students from China in the UK's universities are facing socio-cultural and psychological challenges. Also, the research study of Aisha and Mulyana (2019) have indicated that the students from Indonesia within the context of Universities of the UK has been faced difficulties in the transition to the new academic environment, intense academic workload, boring tutors, and having a feeling of uneasiness. All these challenges are linked with institutional support services, design of the course material, learning from prior experience. Additionally, the research study of Grainger (2011) has investigated the cultural difference between various groups of the students to examine the impacts on their educational careers. In this way, the research study demonstrates that there is little work done within the context of the UK to improve intercultural communication and engagement among students of various cultures.

Another element of intercultural pedagogy is to live "diversity". For the educational professional, the concept of living in diversity means discovering resources in diversity and promoting them (Wyburd, 2018). The focus is not placed on problems or deficits, but the educational work is based on the principle of " strengthening strengths and weakening weaknesses" (Holliday, 2018). It is important to give space to different strategies for action and to integrate educational strategies of different cultural models (Baumann and Vialleton, 2017). "The diversity is an opportunity and to be seen as a valuable resource for everyday educational life, as well as for social life as a whole" (Yu and Moskal, 2019). The pluralisation of the worlds in terms of intercultural competence requires that one can decipher "maps of meaning". The many migration movements of the last decades imply that the diverse and different resources of the migrants must first be discovered. The importance of identifying and strengthening identity (biographical dimensions of the interpretation of reality) results from the frequently occurring identity diffusion (Wang, 2018). With self-ethnicisation, understanding and communication are referred to their cultural features and motifs. From risk society and the confusion, it follows that very different patterns have to be interpreted, understood and in some cases also changed. Handford et al. (2019) present various experience, learning and exercise programs that support the acquisition of intercultural competence. This includes building blocks that address concepts such as culture, the own, the foreign, etc. For McKinley et al. (2019), intercultural competence comprises five areas: "Respect for human rights, social justice, respect for basic democratic rules, consideration of the rights of minorities, respect for foreign cultures".

Methodology

In order to construct the belief and interpret human behaviour to understand the impacts of intercultural communication on the students as well as universities, the researcher will make use of interpretivism research philosophy, as the utilisation of interpretivism research philosophy allows the researcher to analyse various elements and factors that are indirectly or directly linked with the subject (Sale et al. 2002). Furthermore, interpretivism research philosophy also assists the researcher in order to examine the relationship between several elements of the research problem (Sahay, 2016). However, in terms of research approach, the research will make use of deductive research approach to analyse various cultural theories and models in order to examine the level of complexity of intercultural communication and engagement within the context of the British Universities and how these factors are creating challenges for the academic careers of international students (Panas and Pantouvakis, 2010). Therefore, with the use of deductive research approach, the researcher can critically investigate the objects, and these objectives create obstacles not only for the students but also for the University's staff and tutors to provide effective learning platforms to the students (Kumar, 2019).

In terms of research methods, the researcher will rely on the use of qualitative research method. The prominent reason for the use of this method is that qualitative research method better guides the researcher to collect, analyse and utilise both primary as well as a secondary source of data to analyse the research problem (De-Massis and Kotlar, 2014). Moreover, the use of qualitative research method also helps the researcher to focus on specific objects of the research problem to present the well-establish conclusion of the research study (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2015). In addition to this, the qualitative research method is the best choice for the researcher, when the researcher desires to examine the cultural challenges that are associated with the behaviour of the people (Fletcher et al. 2016). In this way, the qualitative method provides a track to the researcher to investigate the research problem in more depth and present the well-generated information.

However, in terms of data collection procedure, the researcher will utilise both primary as well as a secondary source of data collection. Within the primary source of data collection, the researcher will make use of interviews with the tutors, universities' staff members and international students to collect information directly from the participants (Wisdom et al. 2012). While on the other hand, within the secondary source of data collection, the research will collect prior research studies of various research studies within the context of the UK related to intercultural communication and engagement in order to examine the problems that have been occurred due to intercultural activities. Moreover, analyses from the cultural theories will also be part of this section (Singh, 2006). In last, thematic analyses will be used in order to analyse all the collected data in the form of interviews with the tutors, universities' staff members, and international students (Saunders et al. 2007). The use of thematic analyses will be suitable for this search study, as this technique generates relevant themes to meet the objectives of the research study that are helpful in terms of answer the research questions.

Time Schedule Task 1-4 Month 5-8 Months 9-12 Months 13-16 Months 17-20 Months 21-24 Months 25-28 Months 29-32 Months 33-36 Months 1. Development of Introduction Background of the research study The rationale of the research study Aims and objective of the research study 2. Methodology Construction of research approach and philosophy Research Method Research design Collection of Secondary Data Collection of primary data 3. Literature Review Collection of prior research studies Analyses of the theories Identification of loopholes of prior studies Construction 4. Findings and Discussion Analyses of Secondary data Analyses of primary data Discussion 5. Conclusion

All the tasks for this research study will be aligned according to three-years plan to complete the research study. However, in case of delay in the completion of the research study, an additional fourth year can be used to complete the research study effectively. However, the researcher will focus on complete every of the task as per the defined timeline, but the delay in the completion of one phase can lead to the delay in the next phase. Therefore, to meet the standard of the University, the researcher will not comprise the quality and authenticity of the research study, and the researcher will make use of an additional year.

Impacts of the research study

As a research subject in linguistic and cultural studies, "intercultural communication and engagement" has gained in importance as an advanced research topic that should not be underestimated and is currently enjoying great popularity within numerous scientific disciplines. The present research study is intended to shed light on the role of intercultural communication and engagement in the British education system and thus bring about greater attention to intercultural research in cultural policy development in the education sector. With the aim of identifying such effects of cultural differences, uncovering their causes and avoiding their occurrence or minimising their consequences through suitable forms of advice, education or training, several application-oriented disciplines are now concerned with intercultural communication. It is very important for intercultural communication to consider as many or even all research perspectives as possible and to see to what extent they can be found in societies. Nevertheless, the primary concern of this work is to bring together theoretical approaches from cultural philosophy and cultural policy. Building on this, the relationship between worldview and language will be explained in the context of the multilingualism strategy. The question of the connection between language, people, reality and worldview, as well as the entire interest in linguistic relativity, belong to the field of language philosophy, which deals with the "origin, properties, functionality and performance of language.

 

 

 

 

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