Inside-out: mapping an understanding of undergraduate study abroad programs

The potential benefits of undergraduate students studying abroad as part of a degree program have long been touted as central to the social and strategic goals of governments and more recently to an increasing number of universities in the three national case-sites selected for this project – Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet, despite the rhetoric, research consistently indicates each year that only a small percentage of the undergraduate student populations in each of the three national case-sites participate in study abroad programs. Given that ‘study abroad’ is often considered a central aspect of the “internationalisation” model projected by many universities, the thesis’ conceptual framework considers the provision and delivery of study abroad programs as a form of experiential learning (Dewey, 1963) focused on the development of cross-cultural and intercultural understanding. In particular, the thesis suggests that to meet this goal, study abroad programs operate according to institutional social/cultural, political, academic and economic rationales (de Wit, 1995; Knight & de Wit, 1997, 1999). Why study abroad programs attract such low student participation rates in light of these influential factors forms the focus of the inquiry contained herein. This thesis presents a survey of successive government-assisted campaigns, field/academic literature and an ethnography of the experiences of study abroad professionals selected from universities in the three national case-sites who manage or operate study abroad programs. Applying a qualitative interpretivist methodology, the experiences reflect observations from the researcher’s professional field notes and narratives derived from semi-structured interviews. Extant research largely explores study abroad programs from the perspectives of senior administrative and/or academic staff or students. Therefore this thesis is the first to add comparative practitioner-based knowledge to the literature and aims to introduce cohesive collaborative methods to increase study abroad participation rates in and beyond the three national case-sites