Abstract
In ‘Education Abroad’, Ogden, Streitwieser and Van Mol offer what they call a ‘Desktop Compendium’ to policy makers and academics engaged in the field of study abroad theoretical discussions and educational practices. The book is broken down into a structure of five distinct sections that each address the landscape of education abroad, including: Part 1. Participation; Part 2. Programming; Part 3. Student Outcomes; Part 4. Institutional Outcomes; and Part 5. Societal Outcomes. Within this framework, each chapter follows a pre-determined structure of ‘highlights’, ‘introduction and chapter overview’, ‘key questions to be addressed’, ‘review of the literature’, ‘implications for practice’ and ‘directions for future research’. As such, the rhythm and tone of each chapter is somewhat similar, as each contributor follows this outline. This no doubt makes it easily accessible for readers, albeit perhaps less rich in the possibility of having a more polyphonic expression of the contributing voices who, for the most part, harness English language literatures in their discussions of study abroad theories and practices. Yet, the structure itself is particular convenient for those who need a quick reference to research based discussions on international education and for ‘international education practitioners, emerging scholars, higher education administrators, researchers, faculty members, policy makers, graduate students. . .’ (p.9).
As a doctoral student engaged in discussions of global citizenship education, with a focus on the East Asian context, my own personal trajectory throughout this book is shaped by the different social, political, philosophical, digital textures, and entanglements interwoven into higher education grassroots learning, research, and teaching practices that relate to global citizenship education. Thus, my reading of the book is deeply informed by this understanding of the complex social and philosophical materiality as it relates to the movements of peoples, ideas, and practices, as well as the messy and unequal experiences tied to study abroad programmes. Furthermore, the book was written prior to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as movements for societal transformation and liberation, like Black Lives Matter. Therefore, the fractures, divides, frictions, and injury caused by geopolitics, relational ruptures, systemic violence, along with calls for justice, both institutional and interpersonal, were still churning beneath the surface of study abroad discussions, not quite fully visible, with the authors themselves acknowledging a tendency to be ‘overly positive policy rhetoric about education abroad (Van Mol, 2015: 233)’. Indeed, the editors explain how the research presented is a ‘mere snapshot in time’ (p.9); thus, these very recent planetary and social ruptures perhaps complicate and challenge the existing literature, which has primarily focused on the positive effects and outcomes of study abroad, often neglecting the ‘ambiguous and contested’ dynamics that Ziguras and Lucas outline in their chapter on Host Community Impact (p.218).
With my encounters in the complex, rich, and multi-faceted debates of global citizenship education, I was naturally inclined to trace the theoretical and empirical footsteps taken by Doeer, Puente, and Kamiyoshi who look at ‘Global citizenship, identity and intercultural competence’ in Part 3 of the handbook, concerning Student Outcomes. In this chapter, the authors make use of immigration literatures, which sheds light on dynamics of power imbalances, assimilation, integration, and racism that different marginalised communities can experience whilst abroad. In their discussion, they acknowledge differences of ‘legal status or positioning’ between immigrants and international students, and argue that both communities are located ‘on a continuum’, and that such an understanding can foster a critical consciousness around ‘regimes of mobility’ (p.127).
Their discussions create more breathing space for critical reflections on the complex entanglements of education abroad politics. In further examining these entanglements of education abroad politics, they highlight the case of Japan, where international students can work part-time during their studies and, at times, can enter into an unhealthy relationship of dependency in order to remain for employment. Additionally, through drawing upon insights from immigration studies, the authors offer novel invitations for collaborative thinking among different higher education agents through, for example, enabling immigration experts and study abroad designers to come together and become more culturally attuned to the diversities within international education cohorts and the different forms of xenophobia that they experience at home and abroad. They further address symbolic violence in pedagogical practice through suggesting that, at times, implicit goals for global citizenship in programmes can nurture student desires for success in the global marketplace, or to be an ambassador for peace, which can resemble ‘US hegemony in the world’ (p.124). They mindfully pay heed to the act of measuring intercultural competence, which they identify as a key skill in global citizenship education, and interrogate the merits and pitfalls of ‘regimes of pedagogy in education abroad and beyond’ (p.124). Their chapter concludes with a call for all engaged in the field to ‘rethink our commitments to the technical rationalist assumptions behind intercultural measurements, and instead to focus our attention on more mundane practices that currently fall outside the scope of our expertise’ (p.130). This level of humility and sensitivity is needed in the discussion around policies for education abroad, where not all experience can be captured by ‘intercultural measurements’ or located within formal education curriculum and spaces. Too often, the assumptions and ideological underpinnings of higher education practices remain undiagnosed, and, therefore, lead to harm and injury for communities of students, both international and local. To address the root ailments of such practices is paramount, and the ideological grappling that is conducted in this chapter through a review of two bodies of literature (global citizenship education and migration studies) is a hopeful step on this pathway.
Additionally, the authors further reflect on limitations of the book. Whilst the editors delineated that their aim was to provide a ‘truly global overview of what we know’, they acknowledge that there was a lacking in discussion of ‘solid scientific studies’ from contexts such as Africa or South America (p.235). This may well be true, yet at the same time it is important to consider the terms in which such voices, perspectives, and contexts are expected to contribute, and to further reflect on whether ‘global contributions’ must mean references and conceptual frameworks should all be English and sourced from Anglophone discourses. Furthermore, the authors later describe the research offered ‘remains predominantly institution specific and small scale in the sense that much research is based on limited sample sizes, qualitative by design and has limited generalizability’ (p.3), yet it seems necessary to interrogate what we mean when say ‘scientific’, along with the assumptions that may underpin ‘sample sizes’, ‘qualitative design’, and ‘generalizability’. To deepen this consciousness around what counts as knowledge in this conversation for and with policy makers, educators, designers, administrators, and researchers engaged in study abroad programmes and discourses, a look at de Sousa Santos’ work on Epistemologies of the South (2014), particularly Chapter 7 on the Ecologies of Knowledge, could provide a useful reference to critically assess these assumptions related to scientific knowledge from Global South contexts and communities, and the underlying ideological terms of their contributions.
Furthermore, the book utilises the term ‘bridging scholarship and practice’, which suggests a dialogue between two distinct constructed spaces. Indeed, the underlying assumption throughout the book indicates that these two spaces can be loosely defined as that which is explored through research inquiry and that which is a space belonging to or curated and constructed by practitioners (policy makers, educators, administrators, students). Whilst certainly helpful through its accessibility and hopeful in its aspiration and tone, there is perhaps a question here concerning conceptualisations and implicit meanings embedded within the notions of ‘bridging’, ‘scholarship’, and ‘practice’. Are we to assume that the pathways and developments between and within both spaces are straightforward and linear? If so, who exactly are those individuals and groups that are transmitting or dictating such understandings from both spaces, and what are the boundaries of such an interaction? Additionally, it seems necessary to consider the ways in which practice might also refer to the relationships and cultures that can lead to both distorted and harmful behaviours, but also imaginative and generative dynamism at the level of institutional policy and community practice. A look to Oancea’s (2019) work in these discussions could potentially aid in exploring and thickening the understandings around the frictions and imaginative possibilities that exist between research and practice. Finding culturally attuned vocabularies that respond to the complexities within and between scholarship and practice should be an important element to this work, in order for sensitive and deeper visions around what constitutes healthy and meaningful study abroad experiences, policies, programming, and impacts.
In sum, the book does indeed provide a rich overview of the practices and prevalent themes across higher education institutions, and offers easily accessible content for policy makers and academics alike. Additionally, I see promise and hope in some contributors’ gesturing toward interdisciplinary dialogue through use of, for example, migration studies in order to provides insight into the national and international issues, ailments, and imaginaries that shape participation, programming, student outcomes, institutional outcomes, and societal impacts.
Of course the present reality of COVID-19 and its various implications for human and non-human life have surfaced much of what has yet to be addressed in the field of international education, and is no doubt shaping the migratory flows, geographies, and barriers for those engaged in study abroad discussions. Therefore, whilst the book does touch upon questions of inequality and injustice, the next steps for such scholarship will surely involve paying heed to the global, regional, national, and local ruptures caused by the Pandemic, the spatial dynamics it has surfaced, along with a reflection on the normative values and assumptions we who are involved in international education hold dear. At this juncture in history, and according to calls by a UNESCO educational research collective, ‘we cannot return to the world as it was before’ (UNESCO, 2020). As such, the authors and contributors of this book have the opportunity to, for example, reflexively and sensitively assess the normative assumptions and ideologies that study abroad programmes rest upon, to consider pathways forwards for internationalisation at home, South–South co-operations, local and international student activist movements, and diverse embodiments of ‘global citizenship education’. Being attentive to these lines of inquiry, along with the diversity of student experiences, systemic barriers and coercive regimes at play, as well as the imaginative possibilities that this moment has brought education, will be an important endeavour moving forward in discussions concerning study abroad.