Intercultural interaction needs more than mere exposure: Searching for drivers of student interaction at border universities

Against the background of international student bodies, intercultural interaction between the students from different nations has become a key success factor for internationalized universities. This is particularly true for border universities, often founded with the objective of advancing mutual understanding between students from different countries and preparing them for a globalized world. In the studies reported here, we investigate whether border universities as a concept are in fact able to achieve this objective. In the case reported in the first part of the article, the university has made no attempt to encourage intercultural interaction between students other than providing them with the opportunity to study together. This approach reflects the belief – also expressed in political declarations at the time of the founding of the university – that simply bringing students from two nations together at a border university is in itself sufficient in order to improve interaction between them. We attempt to discover the reasons both on the macro-level (i.e., culture) and the micro-level (i.e., individual cultural openness) that lie behind the level of interaction between the two student groups from the neighboring countries. Furthermore, we investigate how interaction contributes to loyalty to the university.In a longitudinal study within a single bi-national student cohort, we could show that differences in the mutual perceptions of the two student groups did not decrease over time. Moreover, the level of intercultural interaction did not increase. Our comparison of first-year students over a period of seven consecutive years further reveals that the progress in general European integration achieved during this time did not increase the propensity of students to interact with each other or to alter their perceptions of each other. A comparison between two border universities, one with low cultural homogeneity of students and one with high cultural homogeneity showed that it is the macro-factor “culture” rather than students’ nationality that affects mutual perception and drives intercultural interaction. The micro-factor “cultural openness” is responsible for the intensity of interaction. For border universities, interaction between students drives students’ loyalty to their university.