Development of Global Competency: Study-Abroad Students’ Responses to Culturally Unfamiliar Situations

• In Event: Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: Experiencing Globalization: Study Abroad and Cultural Competency

Abstract

How do teacher education students respond to culturally unfamiliar situations? Are they stressed by their lack of understanding of the situation? Do they quickly recast the unfamiliar as familiar or do they remain open in the face of ambiguity? With the growing realization of the importance of global competency, teacher education programs are showing an increased interest in study abroad experiences. However, the process by which global competency development occurs is not well understood. We examined three situations where study abroad students spent an hour by themselves in culturally unfamiliar situations. Although this may not seem like much of challenge for the well-travelled reader, our results suggest this assignment proved to both stressful and enlightening for our teacher education students.

Authors

• E. David Wong, Michigan State University

• Allison L. Webster, Michigan State University