Reentry: Leveraging International Learning Upon Returning Home From Study Abroad

• In Event: Educational Innovation and Cross-Cultural Teaching and Learning: Seeking Equity Through Policy and Practice

Abstract

Objectives: This paper reports on findings from the third phase of a larger study and explores a pre–service teacher's intercultural development during the semester following a study abroad program, typically called the re–entry phase. Teacher education study abroad programs have been proposed as a potentially powerful vehicle towards efforts to prepare teachers for work in 21st century schools.
Theoretical Framework: Research suggests that the opportunity to live and work in a foreign culture provides a unique opportunity to transform pre–service teachers’ ethnocentric worldviews and begin them on a path towards culturally responsive teaching (Cushner & Brennan, 2007). The first and second phase of this study pointed to the importance of an immersion experiences within a different cultural context during a study abroad experience (Marx & Moss, 2011). However, research on pre–service cultural learning in study abroad calls attention to the importance of the re–entry phase of an international experience, where students return home and begin to make sense of their experience and look anew at their normative culture. Researchers caution that unless critical cultural reflection is supported throughout the process (pre, during, and re–entry) there is the potential for international experience to be an isolated experiences and not impact students’ cultural growth once students return home (Martin & Harwell, 2004; Tang & Choi, 2004).
Methods and Data Sources: This paper presents the final phase of a qualitative case study. The study took place over the course over three academic semesters, covering pre-departure semester, study abroad, and the re-entry semester (presented here). The study involved two primary data collection methods: participant observation and in–depth interviews. Secondary data sources, such as student coursework, student written journals, and program documents, were used to corroborate and complement the primary data sources. A constant comparative approach was used for data analysis.
Findings: Findings suggest that the dedicated re–entry semester seminar course, an inquiry project designed to promote cross–cultural research, and a domestic urban school teaching internship provided avenues to leverage the cultural learning previously begun during the study abroad experience. The findings provide cautionary insight into the importance, and difficulty, of providing a safe and supportive environment for the challenging work of critical cultural self–exploration. Ultimately, such study abroad programs must be judged on their ability to impact teacher’s culturally responsive pedagogies.
Scholarly Significance of the Study: This paper explores the issues and challenges that emerged for one pre–service teacher during the re–entry phase of a teacher education study abroad program and focuses on the explicit and purposeful re–entry experiences designed to leverage the cultural learning of a semester abroad into a sustained cultural learning opportunity.

Author

• Helen Marx, Southern Connecticut State University