A case study of educators’ perceptions of the DCPS study abroad program in relation to teaching practices and professional beliefs

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Teacher education: Experiences from the field

Proposal

After a two-year break from international and domestic travel, the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) resumed its Study Abroad Program in the summer of 2022. The DCPS Study Abroad Program is the nation's first fully-funded mobility program aimed at equity of access to global travel for all students. Launched in 2015, it has facilitated over 2000 global experiences for middle and high school students to locations around the world, including New York City. The district-wide program is led by teams of DCPS educators. In summer 2022, the DCPS Study Abroad Program offered six domestic destinations with a focus of exploring and connecting global themes and issues in local contexts. The locations and themes of the trips included cultural immersion in New York City, cultural interaction with the environment in Southern Florida, service learning in Puerto Rico, cultural immersion and nature conservancy in Alaska, the Asian American experience in San Francisco, and immigration and refugee issues in San Diego. This paper focuses on research centering on the educators who facilitate this 2022 program. In the proposed paper, we explore two research questions: (1) what are educators’ perceptions of leading global travel experiences with secondary students from DCPS; and (2) how do these educators (travel ambassadors) make sense of these perceptions in relation to their and professional practices and beliefs?

The extant literature finds a plethora of benefits of study abroad in higher education ranging from increased intercultural competencies, developing a clearer self-concept, and academic gains linked to increased academic and career focus upon return from the abroad experiences. Research also extolls the virtues of study abroad experience for pre-service teachers in developing interculturally sensitive and aware educators (Adam et al, 2018, Cushner, 2007, Cushner & Chang, 2015, Cushner & Mahon, 2002, Deardorff, 2006, Hadis, 2005, Merryfield, 2002, Stachowski & Sparks, 2007, Zhao et al, 2009). Benefits for the student travelers in the DCPS program have been documented throughout the lifetime of the program as well (Engel, 2019, Engel et al, 2017, Engel & Gibson, 2022, Engel & Gonzalez, 2022). Considerably less research has queried the effects of global travel experiences on the in-service K-12 educators who actively engaged in such programs.

The paper draws from a qualitative study of the program, including a series of semi-structured interviews with six DCPS educators who participated in the program. Interviews were carried out with these individuals before and after travel in summer 2022. Secondary data include observations of the pre-departure orientations led by these educators. Inspired by previous research by Biraimah and Jotia (2013), the emergent themes derived from the interviews include impact measures of global experiences on teacher effectiveness, enhanced knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and incorporating authentic experiences. With an interest in better understanding teacher perspectives and experiences, the study utilizes a sensemaking framework to analyze educators’ perceptions of their travel experiences and how they perceive those experiences in regards to their professional practices and beliefs (Siczek & Engel, 2019, Spillane et al, 2002, Weick, 1995, Weick et al, 2005). By centering the educators who serve in this program as travel ambassadors, findings from the study are able to shed light on educators’ perceptions of global travel experiences and to better understand how these educators make sense of their experiences as a way to contribute to the research on study abroad at the secondary level of education.

Authors

• Amanda Renee Baker, The George Washington University

• Laura C. Engel, The George Washington University