Willingness to interact with people from different cultures is the most fundamental factor for successful and effective intercultural communication, and also crucial in the simulation of desire for interaction in such context. However, high-level communication apprehension reduces the level of intercultural willingness to communicate, which eventually affects intercultural communication and vice versa. Meanwhile, some scholars argued that a moderate level of communication apprehension will increase intercultural willingness to communicate. Hence, this study started with the investigation of the level of both communication apprehension and intercultural willingness to communicate and ended with the investigation on the relationship between communication apprehension and intercultural willingness to communicate among multicultural undergraduates from five public universities in Malaysia. A total of 450 respondents were recruited to participate in this study. Neuliep and McCroskey’s Intercultural Communication Apprehension scale and Kassing’s Intercultural Willingness to Communicate scale were adopted and modified to assess respondents’ communication apprehension and intercultural willingness to communicate, respectively. Data were coded, entered, and analysed using the IBM SPSS Statistics version 22. Our findings show that all respondents were having a moderate level of communication apprehension which eventually triggered a high level of intercultural willingness to communicate among these respondents. Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between the moderate level of communication apprehension and intercultural willingness to communicate, just like the results documented in the review of the literature. The implications of the findings are discussed at the end of this paper.
The percentage of refugee children in Malaysia has been growing in recent years with a rise of more than 9000 in less than 3 years. More than 51,000 of the 164,620 documented refugees in 2019 are below the age of 18 years. Refugee children are often marginalized in society making them vulnerable and requiring special assistance in meeting their educational needs, mental health care and socio-emotional wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to discover the perceptions of refugee children regarding family life and their emotional and coping mechanisms. Employing the Collage Life-Story Elicitation Technique (CLET) and a discovery-oriented narrative approach, 25 refugee children at a non-governmental educational center in Kuala Lumpur were interviewed. The findings from an in-depth thematic analysis revealed that these refugee children perceived their families as having gone through separation and disruption resulting in isolation, loneliness and being powerless in the host country. Their coping mechanisms included help offered by enabling adults, teachers seen as angels and other wise people from the community who were their sources of strength. They strived for a better future through being brave and independent. We also discuss the need for more humanitarian programs and support for this group of vulnerable children in Malaysia.
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