Students in service of the state: Uncoupling student exchange and global competence

• In Event: Perspectives on Study Abroad

Proposal

Student exchange programs and trips abroad are primarily depicted as a key strategy for schools and higher education institutions to promote students’ global competence and intercultural skills through exposure to international experiences. Although the efficacy of these programs has been questioned and critiqued from many angles, their goals are consistently linked to the personal development of students and their employability.

In the recent round of PISA (2018), a measure of global competence was introduced, in which one of the items in the construct measuring multicultural/intercultural practices in schools refers to the operation of student exchange programs in students’ schools, thus suggesting a connection between the two. Studies that use other measures of global competence (e.g. global citizenship, intercultural mindedness) likewise embody similar assumptions regarding the benefits of travel experience and participation in educational programs abroad (e.g Perry et al., 2013; Salisbury & Pascarella, 2013; Tarant, 2010). These assumptions are also evident in the justifications often used by institutions when developing and marketing study abroad programs and short-term student trips/exchanges; which are framed in student-centered terms that emphasize the personal development of students’ intercultural skills through the multicultural experiences offered (Zemach-Bersin, 2010).

While in the past it was common for the mere encounter with a foreign culture as part of such programs to be considered sufficient for fostering global mindedness or competence and developing intercultural skills, over the recent decades more attention has been given to the specific activities and environmental factors that are necessary for the fostering of meaningful engagement (Cuschner & Chang, 2015; Lokkesmoe, Kuchinke, & Ardichvili, 2016). Without this engagement, many programs are deemed ineffective.

This change in perception is part of a broader shift in recent years to a more critical perspective that questions the efficacy of such programs, rather than simply assuming their benefits. However, most still begin with an assumption that personal development and intercultural skills are always the central if not only goals. For example, when critical scholars such as Cuschner & Chang (2015) call on readers to ‘check their assumptions’ regarding the development of intercultural competence through overseas student teaching, they frame the problem as the “immersion assumption", through which scholars and policy makers assume that immersion in itself can lead to change- rather than engage with the possibility that the purpose of the programs could be oriented towards institutional goals (such as marketing, branding, or even national needs); this could explain why minimal changes have been made throughout the last few decades of criticism.

In contrast, in Israel, disputes over exposure versus immersion or engagement are nearly absent from the way student exchange programs and trips are presented in the literature, particularly in secondary education (Feldman, 2008; Gross, 2018). Such trips, almost exclusively referred to as ‘delegations’, are overwhelmingly presented in state-centered rather than student-centered terms, and as a result, the development of global competence is not part of the agenda from the outset. Most student exchange programs and trips in the Israeli secondary school system are aimed at strengthening and maintaining relationships with communities in the Jewish diaspora, while others have goals that pertain to countering negative portrayals of Israel in foreign media and delegitimizing calls to boycott Israeli companies and goods (Cohen & Liebman, 2000).

In this study, I argue that secondary school student exchange programs and trips are based on aims that are unrelated to global competence or intercultural skills, and thus act as a false signifier in their measurement. I also suggest that a more comprehensive framework informed by the field of political science is useful in examining this phenomenon more comprehensively, allowing scholars to take into account a wider array of underlying motives including mechanisms of soft power and public diplomacy preserved and strengthened through these trips.

Through a thematic analysis of the mandatory online course developed by the Israeli Ministry of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs that all students embarking on any school-based trips abroad must pass, as well as 30 local news articles from the past five years that include testimonials from school principals, participating students, and program leaders, I show how these programs and their goals reflect and are shaped by the socio-political context of Israel. More broadly, I explore the characteristics of the state-focused discourse used to describe, explain, and legitimize these trips, highlighting how students are marginalized and dehumanized through this discourse which reduces them to reflections and ambassadors of the state.

Using the case of Israel’s ‘youth delegations’, I demonstrate an alternative model for articulating the goals of youth exchange programs and trips, that does not align with the aims and anticipated outcomes delineated in comparative education scholarship. The explicit manner in which these goals are articulated in Israel is not surprising, in light of the education system’s nationalistic nature, but political science scholarship suggests that the goals themselves are not unique to the Israeli context and are embedded across many national contexts, albeit more discretely. This suggests that the Israeli case could demonstrate an extreme, visible occurrence of a phenomenon that appears much more subtly and is perhaps overlooked in some settings.

Thus, this study calls for a change in focus- from questioning why student exchange programs are not adequately fostering global competence, to a more critical examination of the programs’ explicit and implicit goals and their associated practices.

Author

• Heela Goren, Institute of Education University College London