Significance of cultural sensitivity for positive personality identity formation among sport and tourism university students

Abstract

Outlining holistic image of a positive personality identity in a cross-cultural setting of professional development for students that gain their degrees in sports and tourism. The research involves a complex of generally accepted methods of qualitative and quantitative data processing, namely linguistic methods of cognitive and semantic analyses, applied to restore conceptual images of a positive personality identity in Ukrainian sport and tourism analytical articles. Furthermore, semantic essay analysis and pedagogical observation of students majoring in sport or tourism, are used to establish the frequency of students’ references to different significant personality features that are likely to be culturally bound for them. The designed research methodology enables us to distinguish physical and social characteristics of a positive personality identity. While the sport media reveal physical qualities of resilience and adaptability as precursor for professional achievement, in tourism milder characteristics of physical well-being and responsible behaviour are focused on. Concerning social aspect of a positive personality image, leadership vs team spirit explicates motor nature of athlete’s image, whilst effective communicative skills are more preferable in tourism. It is important to emphasise that value of cross-cultural awareness is put straightforwardly in tourism with concept categories of cultural sensitivity and cultural engagement mentioned more often by corresponding students (18% and 27% respectively). On the contrary, appreciation of community engagement (18%) and positive attitude (16%) by sport students might only be regarded as implicit reference to cultural sensitivity as desired personality quality. Differentiation of conceptual images of positive personality identity in sport and tourism reveals underestimated power of cultural sensitivity concept for both groups of students. It becomes clear that promoting the idea of positive international experience among students may facilitate their academic endeavours and contribute to their professional achievements.