Many state governments have goals for education to be inclusive, connected to local communities and innovative, and highlight the need to promote multilingualism as cross-cultural education. A multilingual society, it is argued, will facilitate cohesion, inclusion, intercultural understanding, and acceptance. Higher education academic (HEA) institutions increasingly express the need for developing more potent pedagogical practices to promote multilingualism. Often, approaches in foreign language teaching are driven by practices used in first-language teaching, but without any significant adaptation of the teaching material, speech, or content to immerse students in constructive learning experiences. Under such approaches, incoming international exchange students at HEA institutions may complete their mobility exchange programs without becoming immersed in the target culture or becoming proficient using the target language. For example, in multilingual programs, exchange students take most courses in English and find it hard to integrate with the local students, resulting in an international gang (e.g., ‘Erasmus friends’) who live in a new culture from the outside. The experience is thus academically and socially hindered, and often undermined in language and cultural dimensions. This may have a negative impact in the long-term, as companies are looking for multilingual candidates that can interact with and understand cultural diversity.

Our research is part of an Erasmus+ Programme project “Digitalisation of Multilingual Programs in the European Higher Education Academia (EHEA)” (DIMPE, 2022-2025). The project aims to promote internationalization, through the provision of quality practices, and digitalization in EHEA institutions that are either carrying out or are planning to introduce multilingual programs.

We present a literature review and survey of open access resources that seek to identify supporting organizational actions in EHEA institutions that aid in support of home language and intercultural exchange. We followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) workflow methodology and PICO (Population, Object, Intervention, Outcome) framework in our comparative review. We present our methodology and recommendations of actions that might better support meaningful and caring social connections through multilingualism and multicultural international exchange in HEA. Our findings are accessible through an Open Access repository, digital flipbook. We identified differences in the HEA organizational structure of programs in the study area of Europe.

This research has relevance for Europe and in a global context. Our findings through the systematic review and analysis of successful practices, aids Comparative and International Education in Europe, through insight and example. We identify actions that have a social dimension and foster caring and social connections. Our findings can aid international offices, teachers and student groups in future efforts to co-create, implement and plan actions that support constructive learning experiences, learning about culturally salient values, multilingualism, and multiculturalism during intercultural exchanges.

Keywords: Cross-cultural education, intercultural exchange, international education, multilingualism, multicultural exchange.