The Smell, the Emotion, and the Lebowski Shock: What Virtual Education Abroad Can Not Do?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32674/jcihe.v14i2.3808Keywords:
study abroad, virtual, online, intercultural learning, immersion, embodied learning, small cultureAbstract
Education abroad has been a key vehicle for students’ intercultural learning. In response to the international mobility challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many institutions have tried to shift to virtual programs in an attempt to provide continued education abroad experiences. This situation has amplified discussions about online education abroad programs as a way to address some equity issues in the internationalization of higher education. However, there seem to be few discussions about differences between physical and virtual programming with regard to students’ intercultural learning experiences. Fundamentally, what dimensions of traditional education abroad programs can and can not be replicated by online programming? Through a narrative inquiry with three international educators on their own intercultural learning experiences, this study argues that the personal cultural immersion and the associated embodied learning of complex nuanced cultural instances cannot be replaced by virtual programming.
References
Bennett, J. M. (1993). Cultural marginality: Identity issues in intercultural training. In R. M. Paige (Ed.), Education for the intercultural experience (pp. 109–135). Intercultural Press.
Bruner, J. (2004). Life as narrative. Social Research, 71(3), 691–710. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40970444.pdf
Clandinin, D.J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. Jossey-Bass.
Coles, R. (1989). The call of stories: Teaching and the moral imagination. Houghton Mifflin.
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches. SAGE Publications.
Deardorff, D.K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 10(3), 241–266. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315306287002
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Macmillan Publishing Company.
Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Doubleday.
Hall, E. T. (1976). Beyond culture. Anchor Books.
Halpern, A. (2020, September 2). The pandemic is shifting how students student abroad. https://www.cntraveler.com/story/the-pandemic-is-shifting-how-students-study-abroad
Hofstede, G. (2021, August 15). National culture. https://hi.hofstede-insights.com/national-culture
Holliday, A. (1999). Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 237–264. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/20.2.237
Hunter, B., White, G. P., & Godbey, G. C. (2006). What does it mean to be globally competent? Journal of Studies in International Education, 10, 267–285. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315306286930
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. University of Chicago Press.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.
Lashbrook, A. (2020, June 28). The future of study abroad is Zoom calls: Pandemic or no, virtual study abroad programs are here to stay. https://onezero.medium.com/the-future-of-study-abroad-is-zoom-calls-6b325611a
Lyons, N. (2010). Reflection and reflective inquiry: Critical issues, evolving conceptualizations, contemporary claims and future possibilities. In N. Lyons (Ed.), Handbook of reflection and reflective inquiry (pp. 2–22). Springer.
Mitchell, N. (2020, December 1). Is virtual exchange a poor relation to study abroad? University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20201201100033975
NAFSA. (2021a, August 2). Independent research measuring the impact of study abroad. https://www.nafsa.org/policy-and-advocacy/policy-resources/independent-research-measuring-impact-study-abroad
NAFSA. (2021b, April 18).Trends in U.S. study abroad. NAFSA: Association of International Educators. https://www.nafsa.org/policy-and-advocacy/policy-resources/trends-us-study-abroad
Nguyen, A. (2017). Intercultural competence in short term study abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, XXIX(2),109–127. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1161434.pdf
Ogden, A., & Hulse, A. (2021, April 17). Making international education about more than mobility. University World News. https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20210416132345956
Paige, R. M., & Goode, M. L. (2009). Intercultural competence in international education administration. In D. K. Deardorff (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of intercultural competence (pp. 333-349). SAGE Publications.
Parsons, R. L. (2010). The effects of an internationalized university experience on domestic students in the United States and Australia. Journal of Studies in International Education, 14(4), 313–334. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315309331390
Reimers, F. (2009, January 30). 'Global Competency' is imperative for global success. The Chronicle. https://www.chronicle.com/article/global-competency-is-imperative-for-global-success/
Root, E. & Ngampornchai, A. (2012). “I came back as a new human being”: Student descriptions of intercultural descriptions of intercultural competence acquired through education abroad experiences. Journal of Studies in International Education, 17(5), 513–532. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315312468008
Rubin, J. (2015). Faculty guide for collaborative online international learning course development. http://www.ufic.ufl.edu/UAP/Forms/COIL_guide.pdf
Stier, J. (2004). Taking a critical stance toward internationalization ideologies in higher education: Idealism, instrumentalism and educationalism. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/1476772042000177069
Stroud, A. H. (2010). Who plans (not) to study abroad? An examination of U.S. student intent. Journal of Studies in International Education, 14(5), 491–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315309357942
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. SUNY Press.
Williams, T. R. (2005). Exploring the impact of study abroad on students’ intercultural communication skills: Adaptability and sensitivity. Journal of Studies in International Education, 9(4), 356–371. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315305277681
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The findings, interpretations, conclusions, and views expressed in Journal of Comparative and International Higher Education (JCIHE) are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to CIES, HESIG, or the sponsoring universities of the Editorial Staff. These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. Readers are free to copy, display, and distribute articles that appear in JCIHE as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and JCIHE, it is distributed for non-commercial purposes only, and no alteration or transformation is made in the work. All other uses must be approved by the author(s) or JCIHE. By submitting a manuscript, authors agree to transfer without charge the following rights to JCIHE upon acceptance of the manuscript: first worldwide serial publication rights and the right for JCIHE to grant permissions as its editors judge appropriate for the redistribution of the article, its abstract, and metadata associated with the article in professional indexing and reference services.
