Context, Curriculum, and Community Engagement in Social Justice-Focused Study Abroad Programs

Author(s):  
Alankrita Chhikara ◽  
Stephanie Oudghiri ◽  
Michael Lolkus ◽  
Erin N. Rondeau-Madrid ◽  
JoAnn I. Phillion

The authors present findings from their study of how preservice teachers (PSTs) experienced and conceptualized social justice during two study abroad (SA) programs to Honduras and Tanzania. This study examined instructor intentionality (II), the purposefulness on the part of instructors in designing the goals and objectives of study abroad through a selection of context, curriculum, and community engagement. Intentional programming that sought to unfossilize prejudices by providing non-Western-centric curricula was emphasized. In this case study, authors analyzed and interpreted data using a framework for social justice rooted in three components: redistribution, recognition, and representation. The themes discussed in this chapter address (1) the influence of partnerships with community members in the development of social justice curricula; (2) differences across SA programs indicative of multiple approaches to social justice; and (3) various contexts, experiences, and curricula in cultivating social justice-minded educators.

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-268
Author(s):  
Jill Newton ◽  
Stephanie Oudghiri ◽  
Kathryn Obenchain ◽  
JoAnn Phillion

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Apgar

As destination of choice for many short-term study abroad programs, Berlin offers students of German language, culture and history a number of sites richly layered with significance. The complexities of these sites and the competing narratives that surround them are difficult for students to grasp in a condensed period of time. Using approaches from the spatial humanities, this article offers a case study for enhancing student learning through the creation of digital maps and itineraries in a campus-based course for subsequent use during a three-week program in Berlin. In particular, the concept of deep mapping is discussed as a means of augmenting understanding of the city and its history from a narrative across time to a narrative across the physical space of the city. As itineraries, these course-based projects were replicated on site. In moving from the digital environment to the urban landscape, this article concludes by noting meanings uncovered and narratives formed as we moved through the physical space of the city.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingjie Liu ◽  
Thomas Shirley

While all higher education was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, study abroad programs were uniquely challenged by the associated restrictions and limitations. This case study integrates a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) pedagogy approach and virtual reality (VR) technologies into the curriculum redesign process to transform a business study abroad course into an online format. Using VR technology, U.S. students and their international partners in Germany, Brazil, and India created and shared cultural exchange virtual tours. The redesigned online study abroad course engaged students in active learning activities and cultivated students’ intercultural competence development.


2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Brandt ◽  
Thomas Manley

Our purpose is to elucidate a writing technique devised for experience-based study abroad programs. Known as the Fieldbook, the technique has been used with significant success on field study programs offered through Pitzer College. We believe the applied research offered in our case study contributes in critical ways to our understanding of pedagogical practices and suggests positive new directions for improving student learning.


Author(s):  
Trish Lewis ◽  
Letitia Hochstrasser Fickel ◽  
Glynne Mackey ◽  
Des Breeze

Preservice teacher education programs prepare teachers for a variety of educational settings that serve a diverse range of children. Research suggests that many graduates lack confidence and the capability to teach those from backgrounds different from their own, including children from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and children with additional learning needs. In the bicultural, and increasingly multicultural, New Zealand context, preservice teachers are overwhelmingly from White, middle-class, monolingual backgrounds. This chapter offers a case study of the development of a community engagement course within an initial teacher education degree program. Based on Kolb's model of experiential learning and Moll's notions of funds of knowledge and identity, the course aims to enhance preservice teachers' knowledge of the lives of children they teach, and their dispositions and cultural competence for teaching, through personal and professional interaction with the community.


Author(s):  
Carola Smith

This chapter is a descriptive case study on one community college in California to show how the institution was able to successfully institutionalize study abroad through advocacy, strategic planning, and the cultivation of local, statewide, and international collaborations. Because of the longevity and vitality of the program examined in this particular case study, there is useful insight for other education abroad professionals who are at varying stages of implementing, developing, or institutionalizing study abroad programs at their respective institutions.


2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Edvan P. Brito ◽  
Anthony Barnum

This paper presents and analyzes a case study of a five-week study abroad course called Inequality in Brazil: An exploration of race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography. The course was constructed to teach social inequality in the context of Brazil by using place-based and experiential learning within the framework of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1989). By examining inequality through the lens of culture and geography, students were empowered to become student-teachers in their explorations of race, class, gender, and sexuality as they linked theory to practice and lived experience. This paper provides an example of how study abroad can be used to teach about issues of inequality by partnering with community members to build learning environments where students and community members can all benefit.


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