Diverse Learners in Diverse Spaces: International Study Abroad Experiences of Historically Underrepresented College Students

• In Event: 69.057 - Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 69.057-19 - "Boundary Crossings" and Critical Community Engagements: Learning Environments as Promisors of Equitable Educational Opportunity

Abstract

Purpose
As we (learners, researchers, teachers, guides, etc.) consider our learning contexts in global terms, it is important we have experiences—planned and spontaneous—that allow us to develop global understandings to apply to these contexts. Many, however, do not have an equal opportunity in comparison to their peers to engage in invaluable experientially-based learning associated with studying abroad; here, we specifically consider college students who represent racial, ethnic, linguistic and socio-economic minorities as group of learners who are not often provided such experiences. The promise of equal educational opportunity is continually made by institutions of higher education, but that promise is often not kept. The broad objective of this research was to identify ways in which historically underrepresented college students are impacted by participation in international study abroad programs. Such knowledge will contribute to
Theoretical framework
Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991; Robbins & Quaye, 2014; Wijeyesinghe & Jones, 2014) was employed as a frame for approaching the study’s guiding questions and data. Theorists of intersectionality explain individuals at once embody and project multiple identity markers (i.e. age, race, gender, class, language, family educational history, etc.), and these characteristics affect one’s lived experiences including the multiple oppressions (Collins, 1990) one encounters. The nexus of identity signifiers markers cannot be considered in isolation from one another, rather, they must be interpreted as a group of components, each of which impact the others in particular ways. In this study, the application of this framework guided us to make sense of participants’ experiences in terms of the intersections of their varied and unique identities.
Methods/Data sources
This study was guided by the following overarching question: “How do study abroad experiences affect the educational lives of historically underrepresented college students?” Data were collected in the form of interviews (n=24) and survey responses (n=52). Study participants were diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, gender and class. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was utilized to analyze the qualitative data by identifying broad themes and subsequently identifying more specific themes within those broad themes that characterized the dataset as a whole. This analytical approach was appropriate because, as a pilot, a main goal of this study was to determine connective themes and topics.
Results
Several impacts of international study abroad participation were identified in terms of academic and personal growth. We organized some impacts as beneficial, while others represented barriers to receipt of the promise of equal educational opportunity.
Scholarly significance
Much of the existing research-based work in this area fails to consider why students within these populations do not study abroad with the same frequency of their White, American, middle-class, English-only speaking counterparts (e.g. Brux & Fry, 2010; Gaines, 2012; Clemens, 2002; Holmes, 2008). This presentation departs from previous scholarship and focuses on the benefits that become legible when historically underrepresented students go abroad. Information yielded from this study has the potential to influence the trends in underrepresented education abroad participation that have stalled for the past decade (IIE, 2014).

Authors

• Ashley N. Patterson, The Pennsylvania State University

• Robert A. Bennett, The Ohio State University

• James L. Moore, The Ohio State University