ETHICS AND MORAL ISSUES IN A MULTICULTURAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE, INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY AND INTERCULTURAL EFFECTIVENESS

This paper is aimed at debating ethics and moral issues in a multicultural learning environment. It promotes the idea of organizational culture and quality in higher education with a focus on intercultural dialogue, intercultural sensitivity and intercultural effectiveness. The paper disseminates a part of the research results obtained by the team of "Idei 1224" & "Parteneriate 92116" National Research Programmes. The two research projects take into account ethical and moral issues in higher education with special reference to equality of chances, management of diversity and intercultural dialogue-as prerequisites for higher education sustainability. The methodology consists in case studies, interviews and questionnaires applied both to the Faculty of Business Administration (with subjects taught in foreign languages) at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies and the Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Languages at "Politehnica" University of Bucharest. The qualitative interpretation refers to students' opinion regarding intercultural sensitivity at the two faculties that function as multinational learning environments. The team members support the idea that moral and ethical issues are very important in order to better understand and interpret the dynamics of competences in a global knowledge-based society and economy. Intercultural competence and effectiveness can make the difference for the quality and sustainability of higher education. In Romania the previous studies concerning intercultural sensitivity focused on the ethnic dimension. The originality of our research consists in its focus on intercultural dialogue, ethics, moral and intercultural effectiveness when students interact learning the same topic in a foreign language.