Introduction

Abstract

The articles in this special issue are based upon a selection of presentations at the online IAIE conference, organised by the Kibbutzim College in Israel, in 2021. The wide range of 300 presentations reflected themes related to various aspects of the conference title: “Intercultural Education in an Age of Information and Disinformation”. They represented an extensive variety of research and case studies in disciplines relevant to intercultural education, such as: history, technology, education, art, language, and more. Together they demonstrated significant contributions to the field. Unfortunately, COVID-19 limited the conference to a virtual space, which, nevertheless, was designed as a most inviting venue. It enabled the more than 500 participants from all over the globe to find their way easily among the various “rooms”, and offered spaces where people could “meet” old and new colleagues to discuss common concerns. The following are brief summaries of the eight articles in this issue, representative of the major themes addressed at the conference. They reflect both local and global concerns and suggest possible applications for effective intercultural education. In light of the pandemic, the first article, based on the study: Adjustment to Emergency Remote Teaching during the COVID-19 Global Crisis among Diverse Students in Higher Education, attempts to identify factors that explain low rates of undergraduate students’ adjustments to emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the pandemic. The findings highlight various barriers that affected undergraduate students’ adjustments to ERT, related to gender, age, academic year, environmental and personal distractions, and metacognitive strategies. The second article: One Size Doesn’t Fit All – Educational Assessment in a Multicultural and Intercultural World, deals with attempts to challenge multicultural educational assessment. The authors discuss the need to change the educational assessment paradigm, adapt it to a multicultural world, the challenges involved, and potential ways of coping with these challenges. Educational assessment is also discussed in the article: Being Empathic in Complex Situations – A Practical Tool for Practice through Simulation-based Learning, which describes the use of the Delphi technique to develop and