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INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: STUDENTS ABROAD
CHAPTER 2: INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT ABROAD
CHAPTER 3: DEVELOPING AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
CHAPTER 4: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ABROAD
CHAPTER 5: EDUCATION AS CHANGE
CHAPTER 6: STUDY ABROAD AND INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE UNIVERSITY: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
APPENDIX BIBLIOGRAPHY |
Colleges and universities today are faced with a major problem of the type that comes only when one epoch ends and another begins. That problem is how to make a university education relevant in a global society.
During the last forty years we have moved from a world in which society, commerce, and education were defined within the context of nation-states to one in which they are increasingly perceived as part of a global community.
Products from all parts of the world are used daily by people from the most developed to the least developed nations. It is a world of fax machines, international TV news coverage, instantaneous electronic communication, and rapid air travel. Academic research is interconnected with the work of other scholars throughout the world. In short, the global village is here.
In response, faculty and administrators in higher education are searching for ways that will bring our educational programs into the global era. How, they are asking, do we internationalize our colleges and universities? It is the thesis of this book that study abroad is one of the most powerful tools available for internationalizing the curriculum in American colleges and universities.
In preparing this volume, the authors began by examining the research regarding the effects of studying abroad on participating students (Weaver 1989). They then interviewed students from the three institutions with which they are affiliated in order to find real case histories that would attach the research results to reality and make them more understandable. In the process they identified two key variables which determine the degree to which a sojourn abroad affects students: the student's maturity and the extent to which the student is immersed in the host culture.
Consequently, in chapter 1 the study begins with the presentation of the stories of four students who personally had reached different levels of maturity at the time they went abroad and who experienced different degrees of immersion in the culture in which they studied.
The next three chapters focus on the three major areas in which study abroad is considered to have an impact: (1) intellectual development (including language learning), (2) expanded international perspectives, and (3) personal development.
In chapter 2 three ways in which students develop intellectually when abroad are discussed: (1) through language study, (2) through courses in their majors which offer them new perspectives on the subject, and (3) through the acquisition of knowledge in broad, general areas of study which increase the individual's capacity to think systematically and critically (which is akin to the goals of what is often referred to as "general studies"). How course work done overseas is assessed and given credit within the structure of the American academic system is also discussed.
The third chapter examines the manner in which students develop an international perspective when studying abroad.
The literature on the subject is carefully surveyed, and three basic ways in which students change are identified: (1) in the perception they have of the host culture and in their understanding of it, (2) in the way they perceive their own culture, and (3) in what the authors call "global understanding."
The fourth chapter explores how the personal development of students studying abroad is measured and how it relates to developmental psychology. In studies done on the subject, discrepancies have been found among the results of measurements using standardized tests, specially constructed instruments, and self-reporting surveys. These discrepancies are discussed and explained.
In chapter 5 the authors propose a theoretical framework based on the work of Piaget and Inhelder (1958), for understanding the effects of study abroad on students. In this view---of education as change---the growth resulting from an overseas study experience is a complex evolving process of balancing and rebalancing, of assimilating (interpreting new experiences in terms of current or previous structures of knowing) and accommodating (modifying existing ways of looking at the world to incorporate new knowledge or experience).
The conclusion to be reached is not only that study abroad is potentially a powerful educational technique, but that the design of the program and the selection of the participants can also make a significant difference in a program's outcome. Therefore, the final chapter offers a number of recommendations which the authors feel will expand the opportunities for an increase in effectiveness of study abroad programs in American educational institutions. The salient research to which the authors have referred throughout the book is summarized in a table in the appendix.
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