I. Topic

Educational travel can be a powerful mechanism for social change if it is geared towards personal and professional development through community involvement rather than towards personal gain.

I. Introduction

a. Travel

i. "For those fortunate enough to be living in certain sectors of society, globalization is associated with a higher standard of living, not only in the availability of consumer goods but also in occasions for travel and for enriching contact with other world cultures." (Burbules & Torres: 2000: 17)

 

ii. "Being in a foreign environment is not adequate in itself, because the mind has a tremendous ability to discard information it is not prepared to receive. Short-term tourist visits, for instance, have the potential to reinforce prejudices and stereotypes For students to progress beyond the perspective of their own culture, they need to understand that different perspectives exist in different cultures. For the students to understand the perspectives of a different culture, it is absolutely essential that they participate in it." (Hansel: 1988: 179)

 

iii. "First, the role of vacations has changed for many people. In the past they were simply time for rest and

recuperation, but with the decline in the amount and physical pressure of work, this has ceased to be seen as the primary purpose of a vacation for many people. Second, there has been a general increase in the range of recreation activities that are important in most individuals' lives." (Bodger: 1998: 28)

b. Educational travel

i. Educational travel - following Metraux, "a social process of acquiring knowledge of an intellectual or technical nature, under institutionalized conditions, outside one's own social and cultural environment (Cross: 1973: 401)

 

ii. "The travel that seems to belie consumerism is that which the travelers indicate they have learned about themselves, their world at home, and gained new information. I suggest that there is a need for educational philosophy of travel in order to address the needs of travelers that evolve from entertainment to the focus of learning." (Roberson: 2002: 2)

 

i. "Educational travel is defined as a program in which participants travel to a location as a group with the primary purpose of engaging in a learning experience directly related to the location." (Bodger: 1998: 28)

 

ii. "Educational travel provides an immediate and personal experience of an event, place, or issue that cannot be duplicated. Educational travel offers opportunities for individuals within the group to explore specific and even individual issues and interests with other participants and the leader in a way that is usually impossible in the more usual educational environments. Educational travel provides the opportunity to combine leisure with a learning experience that is directed and meaningful. In an immersion situation, the daily exposure to a different set of cultural values can lead to dramatic changes in a participant's perceptions and attitudes. Being able to communicate and share their knowledge and enthusiasm in ideal locations can be very satisfying for the leader." (Bodger: 1998: 28-29)

 

iii. "educational travel programs fall naturally within the continuum of lifelong learning, and therefore are featured in the programs of many continuing education providers." (Bodger: 1998: 29)

 

iv. "what we hope for from educational travel is that it will transcend the familiar stereotypes of the "grand tour," "seeing the sights," and "looking at the quaint natives." We hope the travel will sensitize students to other cultures, other people, and other times, and will help them to understand what they experience" (Parker: 1975: 93)

c. Internationalization of Education

i. (at the national, sector, and institutional levels) the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education (Knight: 2003)

 

ii. "International, intercultural, and global dimensions are three terms that are intentionally used as a triad. International is used in the sense of relationships between and among nations, cultures or countries. But we know that internationalization is also about relating to the diversity of cultures that exist within countries, communities, and institutions, and so intercultural is used to address this dimension. Finally, global, a controversial and value-laden term these days, is included to provide the sense of worldwide scope" (Knight: 2003: 2)

 

iii. "the discussion does not center on the globalization of education. Rather, globalization is presented as a process impacting internationalization. In short, internationalization is changing the world of education and globalization is changing the world of internationalization" (Knight: 2003: 3)

d. International Education

i. "Most learning occurs outside the typical classroom. Traveling in new places, meeting new people, interacting with other cultures will provide an environment where the traveler can personally participate in self-directed learning." (Roberson: 2002: 5)

 

ii. "the overall social growth provided by international education frequently supersedes the academic lessons" (Hinga: 1990: 65)

 

iii. "foreign travel and study can produce a much greater change in attitude in a shorter time than can a regular program of campus study.The shift in a liberal direction after study abroad was most pronounced for the more conservative students.The most liberal quartile of students actually recorded a slight shift in a conservative direction." (Landers, 1973: 93)

e. Loss of state autonomy over education

i. "The educational sphere is probably one of the areas in which the consequences of globalization are most seriously felt. Despite the inertia of the large institutional machinery of formal educational systems, which continue operating despite an internal crisis, traditional educational practices make less and less sense." (Capella: 2000: 249)

II. Participants

i. "Unlike the immigrants or refugees of past generations who were forced by political, religious, and economic difficulties to migrate-the new diaspora of transnational and transcultural students move overseas temporarily, chasing economic, social, educational, and cultural opportunities. This new diaspora represents privileged elites for whom an international education plays a pivotal role in their identity formation. They, and other highly mobile groups like them, occupy powerful positions upon their return home and have considerable influence on policy and politics disproportionate to their actual numbers. As mobile groups, it is they who are able to imagine the nation and its links to the outside world in radically new ways. With formative international experiences, they are able to look at the world as dynamic and multicultural. This is so because they operate within a hybridized space and are equally comfortable in more than one cultural site. Their identity is intercultural with multiple cultural defining points. They typify a new global generation." (Rizvi: 2000: 223)

b. Individuals vs. Groups

i. "the importance of encouraging and enabling students to travel on their own. University sponsored and organized study trips are not a substitute for independent travel. Secondly, students should be encouraged to travel in small numbers as it increases their likelihood of interacting with local people." (Gmelch: 1997: 489)

III. Types of Travelers

a. Social Worker

i. "Within the profession, the "push" for increased attention to the international dimensions of social work practice is being reinforced by: (1) the increasingly more international nature of social work practice in the United States (e.g., with clients of diverse national, ethnic, religious, social, and cultural backgrounds and with persons from other countries); (2) the profession's recognition that social work knowledge, values, and skills have much to offer in finding sustainable solutions to worldwide social problems; (3) the existence of an expanding international social welfare infrastructure; and, (4) the increasing numbers of professional social workers engaged in international practice." (Estes: 1992: 10)

 

ii. "As social work practitioners and educators, we have been sensitive to these cultural changes from a neighborhood perspective, and we must now refine our practice orientation to incorporate a global community of customers, clients, and participants." (Traub-Werner: 2000: 5)

 

iii. ""Internationalizing" the professional development of social workers is an inevitable next step in the ever-shrinking global village, as social work educators and practitioners work around the world, in cultures and nations that are different from their own." (Traub-Werner: 2000: 6)

 

b. Student

i. "In both experiential learning and cross-cultural travel, students apply the information they learn to daily life, and thereby promptly discover the gaps, deficiencies, and mistakes in their understandings. Students use more of their senses to gain information, rather than depending solely on language and abstract symbols as they do in conventional classroom instruction. Finally, learning in both settings is holistic so that relationships are better grasped than when each part is studied separately." (Gmelch: 1997: 489)

 

ii. Elementary - Internationally mobile adolescent

 

1. Internationally mobile adolescents (third-culture adolescents)- adolescents who spend part of their developmental years in one or more countries other than their country of origin or citizenship because of the international work of their parents (Gerner, Perry, Moselle, & Archbold: 1992: 197)

 

2. "U.S. internationally mobile adolescents have more interest in travel and learning languages, and that they rate themselves more culturally accepting and more oriented to an international lifestyle in the future than their peers in the United States (p<.001). (Gerner, Perry, Moselle, & Archbold: 1992: 197)

IV. Guidelines - 1) Maximize involvement in the host culture, 2) Allow enough time, 3) Provide adequate support to ensure successful coping with stress, 4) However, do not eliminate stress (Hansel: 1988: 188-190)

a. Lifestyle & Personal Development

i. "These adolescents develop greater cultural acceptance, they have an increased desire to learn other languages, they are interested in international careers, they wish to maintain internationally mobile lives, and they are closer to their families because of the shared experience of adjusting to other cultures." (Gerner, Perry, Moselle, & Archbold: 1992: 197)

V. Purpose of Travel

a. Selection vs. self-cultivation

i. Selection - selection of persons for occupations and elite positions in society (Cross: 1973: 395)

 

ii. "Education in antiquity was not conceived of in narrowly vocational or technical terms but was seen as a social process which enhanced the cultivation of the personality. Such cultivation was aimed at equipping the individual to carry out his role in society." (Cross: 1973: 399)

b. Personal development - the unfolding, growth, evolution, expansion and maturation of the individual self (Gmelch: 1997: 485)

i. "individual change and maturation occurs in periods of discontinuity displacement, and disjunction.the discrepancy or disjunction that individuals experience causes them to modify their view of reality-their attempts to resolve the discrepancy between what they formerly knew and what they are now confronted with leads them to a new and more mature understanding." (Gmelch: 1997: 487)

c. Social justice

i. "The primary purpose of the "social development" model is to provide a framework for identifying and subsequently acting upon the underlying causes of human degradation, powerlessness, and social inequality everywhere in the world. The ultimate goal of the model is to guide collective action toward the elimination of all forms of social oppression, social and economic injustice, and national and international forms of violence" (Estes: 1992: 25)

 

ii. "The central values of the social work profession emphasize self-determination, human rights, and social equity" (Van Soest: 1992: 51)

d. Conscientization

i. i.e. profound insight into the source(s) of their oppression combined with a willingness to act collectively in bringing about solutions to those oppressions (Estes: 1992: 28)

VI. Related theoretical concepts

a. Globalization

i. Globalization - "the intensification of a worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa." (Morrow & Carlos Torres: 2000: 27-28)

 

ii. Nonideological definition of globalization: "the flow of technology, economy, knowledge, people, values, and ideas.across borders." (Knight: 2003: 2)

 

b. Glocalization

i. "the way local, national, and global interrelationships are being reconstituted, but mediated by the history of the local and the national and by politics, as well as by hybridization, an important resulting cultural feature of the multidirectional flows of cultural globalization and the tension between homogenization and heterogenization" (Lingard: 2000: 81)

c. Counterglobalization

i. the influence exerted by "the rise of some new social movements and the role of local and international nongovernmental organizations (Burbules & Torres: 2000: 18)

d. World-building - i.e. the process of integrating and transforming the aspirations of collectivities at all levels of social organization toward those that advance the development of people everywhere (Estes: 1992: 33)

 

e. "Global imagination" - "a romantic vision of a world in which people around the world were connected with each other. It implies a cosmopolitanism in which irrational views of religious and ethnic difference did not prevail." (Rizvi: 2000: 217)

 

f. Solidarity

i. three kinds of possibilities of involvement that all display "culture of solidarity": "participation out of mere ideological empathy; participation by means of economic contributions (which actually implies an indirect participation, by means of representation, in financing the activity performed by others); or participation through the contribution of voluntary work, that is, direct participation." (Capella: 2000: 245)

g. International Collaboration

i. "a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into two or more organizations to achieve common goals" (Mattessich & Monsey: 1992)

 

ii. "Participation in international collaborations has been shown to increase individual awareness and knowledge of global issues, to enhance cross-cultural competence, and to strengthen the capacity of social work education to contribute to the building of the social work profession at home and throughout the world." (Asamoah: 2003: 1)

 

iii. "One of the main goals of international collaboration is to prepare students and faculty to function more

effectively in a global society and to respond more appropriately to issues generated by a global economy" (Asamoah: 2003: 6)

 

iv. collaboration: "(1) sustainability; (2) mutuality, with each partner contributing and benefiting in a meaningful way; and (3) the ripple effect that comes from institutional commitment and involvement that goes beyond that of a few individual faculty members. Sustainability allows the collaborative partners to benefit from this experience and make improvements over time. Mutuality ensures that the partners are invested in the exchange and will benefit equally, although not necessarily in the same way." (Asamoah: 2003: 7)