The ability to effectively understand and relate cross-culturally can be a life and death situation for those serving in the military. The Defense Language and National Security Education Office (DLNSEO) is working with the Cultural intelligence Center to address the need for assessing cultural readiness among military forces. DLNSEO is committed to providing the Department of Defense with an empirically rigorous, relevant tool for evaluating and improving culture training programs and for predicting the kinds of cross-cultural functions for which military personnel are properly suited.
The first part of the cultural intelligence project with DLNSEO involves assessing a group of military personnel who are enrolled in a two-year qualification program for the special forces. The soldiers will take the CQ assessment before and after their cultural training program to assist the faculty and respective agencies to see what parts of cultural intelligence were enhanced the most through the training. The project will conclude in August and the findings will be used to assist DLNSEO in having a plan in place for a consistent method of evaluating cultural training programs and providing a tool for measuring cultural readiness.