Critical reflective questioning while studying abroad: Promoting sustainability and deepening critical consciousness

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Student mobility reflections on learning

Proposal

Any time a person crosses a border that demarcates familiar from unfamiliar, abundant opportunities exist for critique of what is being seen and not-seen. As such, critical literacy pedagogy is particularly appropriate for educational programs that involve crossing international borders. Moreover, this approach is especially relevant in the contexts of broader critiques about global education, notions of human progress, and efforts toward sustainability.

As study abroad continues to become more inclusive of students and destinations representing diverse cultural norms, it is increasingly important to consider the critically conscious learning that intercultural programs can offer. By and large, programs that focus only on purportedly neutral “global competencies” can miss opportunities to consider and challenge existing inequities, and may themselves even replicate inequitable power dynamics, particularly for students with marginalized identities. On the other hand, critical pedagogy examines power dynamics under the premise that nothing is neutral. This, naturally, includes timely and comparative critiques of “progress” including narratives around productivity, industrialization, modernity and consumption. Critical pedagogical practices act as a proverbial magnifying glass to enable interrogation of societal systems, while simultaneously serving as a proverbial mirror that encourages reflection for the individuals who are performing the interrogation.

Critical approaches to reflection can mitigate potential harms that can transpire from education abroad, such as learning that comes at the expense of others, whether from approaching travel with an uncritical “tourist gaze,” or from dysconscious and prejudiced attitudes that students may encounter along the way. Critical reflection doesn’t necessarily make ignorant conversations or discriminatory situations less painful, but it can foreground critical issues so that all participants can be both challenged and supported in ways that can deepen critical consciousness.

International educators would benefit from methods that could help them broach critical pedagogy in a way that is as accessible as it is effective. The tested principles of critical literacy provide a reflective framework to critique experience before, during, and after travel, through reflective questioning. Freire claimed that questioning itself is a radical act, which can ultimately prompt action and change. To help educators harness the radical power of questioning in the service of transformative learning through a study abroad program, the lens of critical literacy considers any experience as “text” to be analyzed by participants, instructors, community partners, and other stakeholders. Such questioning compares, contrasts, and critiques the multiple and dynamic perspectives that emerge and interact throughout the course of the program. Furthermore, it allows participants to consider their own intercultural assumptions about themselves, and can spur them toward taking action accordingly.

This roundtable presentation will introduce some of the basics of critical literacy and offer concrete suggestions and examples of how critical reflective questioning can be integrated into new or existing study abroad programs, so that these concepts can be put into practice right away in order to deepen intercultural learning. The collegial nature of this roundtable will allow for all of us to collectively explore these ideas in light of the unique perspectives and roles of everyone in attendance.

Author

• Jill Manske, Michigan State University