Intercultural Communication Study in Italy

The condition of intercultural communication (ICC) in Italy can be summed up as “desperately needed and sporadically available.” Increasing pressures of diversification in a society that is already notable for its diverse history make intercultural communication a crucial competence. However, scholarship in the area is impeded by a lack of recognition of the discipline and by its expropriation into other academic areas in varying and even idiosyncratic ways. The strongest supporters of intercultural communication in more or less its original form are language programs, which often treat ICC as a parallel competence with linguistic competence. There are also several strong foundations and institutes that make intercultural competence central to their work, and one of the country's few large companies has incorporated intercultural training into its educational program. The current and likely future growth area for intercultural communication is through social services tooling up to deal with new immigrants and refugees.