Research Into Global Citizenship Education
Coming to college, I always dreamed of studying abroad. I aspired to travel to beautiful places rich in culture, meet people diverse in background and thought, and acquire valuable assets that might be beneficial for life after college. What I had never thought about, though, were the foundations of study abroad, who benefits from it, or how it relates to history and racial politics. These are the questions that, in today’s sociopolitical climate, those of us who are racially privileged (i.e., white) should be confronting. My summer research fellowship intended to do just that: explore institutional elitism and racism in study abroad programs.
To consider these questions, I examined the relationships Colgate students had with their abroad experiences by exploring an archive of interviews and literature on international education. Professor Mark Stern (educational studies), one of my first-year professors in the Benton Scholars Program, oversaw this Colgate Summer Research Fellowship. He asked my Benton cohort to consider how colonial pasts remained present in the physical, political, and ideological triangle of New York, the Netherlands, and South Africa (the Dutch being the connection). In preparation for our trip to Amsterdam and Cape Town (which was canceled due to COVID-19), the class read literature about the industry of global citizenship and conducted interviews with alumni as well as current Benton scholars about their abroad experiences.
Global citizenship education has come to refer to a curriculum that attempts to offer students cross-cultural experience. While many may cite employability, cultural understanding, widened perspectives, and immersive language experience among the advantages of studying abroad, some scholars offer more critical interpretations. Critical global citizenship education literature focuses on both highlighting and dismantling the colonial legacies in study abroad programs. These critiques often place the origins of study abroad and global education in a long tradition of colonial practices: universities utilizing their capital to send students to historic colonies to be educated in ways that reify concepts of “otherness” and the hegemony of the global North.
As I listened to the interviews during my fellowship, I began to see how some themes from the literature resonated with students’ experiences. For example, one student suggests, “There was no stepping outside of your comfort zone. There was no self-reflection about positionality, because it was just the same [experience,] except in a different country.” So, when we talk about the concept of studying abroad, we should consider: Are students really experiencing what it’s like to be abroad if they just surround themselves with each other?
In relation to this exploratory research, it would be interesting to see how we, as a progressive university community, might reimagine the way students study abroad. Through Colgate’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan, we have a unique opportunity to grow as an institution, by adding a critical lens to study groups. We must ask: Are students consciously attempting to reach outside their comfort zones to combat implicit bias? Are they engaging in diverse conversations and literature? And are they contextualizing new material locally, or within a globalized society?
— Erin Flannery ’23, from Warwick, N.Y., is an international relations major planning to minor in geography. She is a member of the Colgate Equestrian Team and the Club Ski Team. Last year, she was a senator for the Class of 2023 in the Student Government Association.
The University’s Approach to an Evolving Field
By Joanna Holvey Bowles, director, Office of Off-Campus Study
Erin Flannery’s thoughtful essay has identified many of the complexities of education abroad programs. Education abroad is a field of active research in its own right that seeks to critically examine and improve the educational experience for all. Some of the central questions for the field include: Why are we conducting study abroad? Who are these programs benefiting? How can we help students to actively and thoughtfully engage with these new communities in which they will be living? How can we prepare them to do so safely and ethically? In the approximately 150 years that universities have sent students abroad, answers to these questions have changed and will continue to do so as our understanding of the world and our place in it evolve.
As Flannery notes, Colgate’s focus on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (as part of its Third-Century Plan) provides an important opportunity for the institution to reexamine its approach to off-campus study to address these issues. Colgate has already made some important strides in these areas. For many years, Colgate has extended financial aid to cover extra costs associated with its own study groups. Five years ago, we extended these financial policies to cover external (approved) programs as well, in order to allow students to select the program that is the best academic fit for them, regardless of their financial situation. This is one important step to broadening who has access to these educational experiences.
Colgate also continues to evaluate how to improve its own programs and the diversity of programs available to students. Beginning last year, all students in approved programs in a location where English is not the primary language are required to take a course in that language. Such courses can enhance students’ ability to engage more deeply in the local communities in which they live. We have also worked with academic departments to increase the geographic and academic diversity of Colgate study groups and approved programs. Colgate study groups in diverse locations such as Santa Fe, N.M.; Japan; South Africa; and others are purposefully designed to deeply engage with the communities and cultures in which students will be living. This includes predeparture classes to prepare students for life in diverse locations. Certainly, this work is constantly evolving, and we will continue our efforts to enhance students’ ability to engage with these important issues.
Finally, it is important to recognize that students come to these programs with a range of interests, expectations, and comfort levels. Study groups also have different academic goals and purposes. But, ultimately, we can and must do more to make deep and thoughtful cultural engagement and critical evaluation about the study abroad experience important aspects of all Colgate off-campus study programs. The Office of Off-Campus Study will continue to work with academic departments and students to enhance our efforts in these areas and continue to evolve our approach to the lessons of living and learning abroad.