Academic Travel: Underscoring Privilege, Providing Insights, or Both?

• In Event: 46.076 - Transforming Self Through Intercultural Experiences

Abstract

Over the last decade, dozens of U.S.-based faculty of higher education have been invited to participate in “Dialogue Tours” to Turkey in affiliation with a Muslim organization. This paper highlights the experiences of two U.S.-based educational researchers/ teacher educators who participated in one of these tours in the summer of 2013 and grappled with their uncomfortable privilege, their transformative insights related to gender and language, and the cognitive dissonance that resulted. Further, this paper explores the ways the two educators confronted their biases and considered the educational implications of their dissonance and insights as related to their work with preservice teachers in the U.S.

Authors

• Kimberly Ilosvay, University of Portland

• Anita Bright, Portland State University

• James Arthur Gambrell, Portland State University