A Sense of Place: Creating Spaces for Intercultural Learning in Study Abroad

Introduction

Solving the most pressing issues of our time requires new approaches to help develop the thoughtful and interculturally competent citizens our global era requires. Although frequently working toward the shared goal of increasing students’ intercultural abilities, the fields of international education and language education do not always have the opportunity to inform one another. For instance, overlapping paradigms from both fields emphasize the importance of critical reflection for intercultural learning. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a model of practice for the creation and ongoing collaboration between a World Languages department, the Center for Global Engagement at the college, and an already existing study center in Spain to provide a transformative semester-long study abroad experience to undergraduate students.

In this chapter we describe how we developed a program led by an on-site faculty director to guide students’ intercultural learning to augment the already rich offering by the host institution. Over the past seven years, language faculty serving as faculty directors have utilized paradigms from both language education and global education to develop and deliver intercultural coursework, to provide cultural mentoring, and to foster community partnerships in order to strengthen opportunities for engagement with the local community. These interventions have helped cultivate spaces for deep intercultural learning, as students engaged in a variety of community service and research projects. Written and oral reflections were an essential component in facilitating students’ deepening intercultural awareness and fostering an ever-evolving community of practice. This community of practice, in turn, promotes students’ sense of agency and intercultural learning during their semester abroad.