A Mentor, Guide, and Friend: Exploring the Role of Cultural Guides in Education Abroad

• In Event: Connecting Communities: Transformative Research Exploring Host and Indigenous Community Perspectives in Preservice Teacher Education Abroad

Abstract

A common belief in study abroad is that simply by spending time abroad, student’s cultural perspectives and beliefs are changed. However, this belief that exposure to a new culture alone is enough to engender cultural changed has been challenged many times. For an international program to be impactful, the program must be thoughtfully designed and incorporate meaningful elements that seek to challenge participant’s cultural assumptions and provide them an opportunity to grow interculturally. There are a number of strategies for intercultural growth that have been studied, such as critical reflection, living and working in a host country setting, and language learning. This project focuses on the impact of the “cultural mentor” or “cultural guide” role, which has been seen as a power tool to support intercultural learning. This role is crucial as participants are constantly interacting with other participants in the program, instructors and faculty of the host nation, other international students, other study abroad students, and others living within the host nation. These interactions are often not considered and under researched.

This paper draws on interview data from the experience of several cohorts abroad in the United Kingdom who were asked to describe individuals who had a positive impact on their time abroad. Participants shared narratives of meaningful experiences and interactions with people they identified as influential to their intercultural learning. Then, where possible, those “influential” individuals were contacted to explore how they viewed their role, responsibility, and interaction with the US preservice teachers abroad they work with. In this way we’ve identified both how host nation individuals perceived US preservice teachers but also how they perceive their responsibilities.

Participants described a variety of individuals as influential in their learning while abroad. These individuals fall under three categories: home nation individuals, host nation instructors, and host nation contacts. Home nation individuals included program leaders and other cohort members who challenged their thinking or highlighted diverse perspectives. Host nation instructors included their professors and instructors abroad, as well as the teachers they worked with in schools abroad. Host nation contacts included people who did not hold a formal instructional or mentorship role, but assumed an unofficial role and challenged the perspectives of participants. Host nation individuals who were identified as influential described their role in multiple ways, including instructional, support, and relationship building.

This research adds to our understanding of how meaning making occurs in preservice teacher education abroad. Additionally, it serves as an exploration into an under researched element of preservice teacher education abroad. The perspectives of host nation individuals are often not considered or evaluated, and so this research endeavors to her begin to explore host nation individual’s perspectives. Through identifying these valued perspectives and meaningful experiences, this research also offers valuable insight into program design and mentoring of PSTs abroad, with suggestions for training cultural guides in facilitating meaningful experiences, reflection and learning.

Authors

• Jon Simmons, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• David M. Moss, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Helen Marx, Southern Connecticut State University
  Presenting Author