Leadership Education Study Abroad Programs: Transformative or Trying?

Session Submission Type: Panel Discussion

Short Description

Study abroad programs should develop students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes by exposing them to different cultures and experiences. Panelists have each led undergraduate and graduate level study abroad programs around the world, including a variety of programs to non-Western countries. They will share lessons learned regarding successful and unsuccessful educational programs including: strategies to assess student readiness for travel abroad to underdeveloped and developing countries, the establishment of norms for students traveling abroad, and how to engage in difficult conversations when students struggle to demonstrate course expectations.

Detailed Abstract

Study abroad programs should develop students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes by exposing them to different cultures and experiences. But such programs in Leadership Studies have the added lessons of preparing students to manage relationships with individuals and contexts with which they are culturally unfamiliar; learning how to be respectful and sensitive when interacting with locals, and helping students self-reflect and understand their own privilege. As Leadership Studies attract students from a broad variety of disciplines and ideologies, many students do not yet have a deep understanding of their own privilege and how that intersects with leadership and the way this is communicated via their behaviors and language. These lessons take on greater meaning for study abroad programs in Leadership Studies, as locals will expect students to demonstrate such leadership skills and sensitivity even though students may be far from being adept at demonstrating the knowledge, values, and behaviors associated with leadership. This is particularly important for North American students to understand and be sensitive to differences in privilege between themselves and people of underdeveloped and developed nations.

Short term study abroad programs have been shown to be beneficial for students in terms of global awareness (Chieffo & Griffiths, 2004; Golay, 2016), and global learning and development, as defined by Braskamp, Braskamp and Merrill (2009) in terms of increased intercultural competence, intercultural maturity, and intercultural sensitivity of students (Salisbury, An, & Pascarella, 2013). While some students describe the experience of studying abroad as transformative, it does not appear to be particularly exceptional for all students. Kamdar and Lewis (2015) assessed students on their level of cultural intelligence and found little difference from beginning to exit following an 8 week trip; students scoring relatively high on behavior and motivation at both times. Some increases were noted in students’ self-assessments of their interest in other cultures and their ability to adapt to different cultural norms. Authors commented that for some students the experience was too short; that they remained in a “bubble” maintaining behaviors and perceptions specific to their home country. Trilokekar and Kukar (2011) followed up with students in a pre-teaching study abroad program and found some had disorienting experiences due to differences between themselves as members of the host country in race, privilege and being outsiders. While some students reacted negatively to these disorienting experiences, others were inhibited, intimated or defensively reactive. Several authors (Borghetti, Beaven, & Pugliese, 2015; Jeanneau, & Giralt, 2016) point to the value of preparatory training to increase intercultural awareness using linguistic practice, reflection, peer-to-peer cross cultural interactions, etc. These lessons seem particularly salient to leadership studies instructors.

Panelists have led undergraduate and graduate level study abroad programs around the world, including a variety of programs to non-Westernized countries. They will share lessons learned regarding successful and unsuccessful educational programs, including strategies to assess student readiness for travel abroad to underdeveloped and developing countries, establishing norms for students traveling abroad, but also how to engage in difficult conversations when students struggle to demonstrate course expectations.

Sub Unit

• Leadership Education

Chair

• Karen L. Stout, Western Washington University

Presenters

• Wendy E. Rowe, Royal Roads University

• Holly Diaz, Western Washington University

• Amber Manning-Ouellette, Iowa State University