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International Studies at Union 2005 Feigenbaum Forum home page Cultural Immersion and Study
Abroad 1 "The tragedy about Americans," noted Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, "is that they understand others so little." Students who study abroad not only enrich themselves, but in countless small ways help bridge the gulf between "them" and "us." But to achieve this students must be immersed in the host society and not all terms abroad are equal in this respect. Several studies of international programs have documented the importance of developing personal relationships with members of the host society in order for students to gain much from their study abroad. Furnham and Bochner (1977), for example, conclude that learning another culture is largely a function of the number of host culture friends the overseas student has. Rowles (1978) argues that it is only through personal relationships that the overseas student truly comes to know the host culture, and Hansel (1988) goes so far to say that if students do not form interpersonal relationships in the host society, then a trip abroad has little to offer that cannot be obtained in a classroom setting. As a thirty year veteran of taking students abroad, I have come to believe that immersion in the host culture is the most essential component of a successful study abroad experience. Based on the amount of immersion they provide, terms abroad can be divided into three broad types. First, is the program where students live together in a dorm on campus or together in apartments. I’ll call this low immersion type, the Dorm Term Abroad. Second are programs where students live with families (homestays) but like the first group they attend classes on campus. Lets call this the Homestay Term Abroad. In both terms, students spend the bulk of their time on campus in a setting similar to the university settings from which they came. The third type is the anthropology style field term abroad in which students not only live with local people in homestays but do so in separate communities, isolated from one another. Instead of attending classes on campus they are mostly engaged in full-time, independent field research. I’ll call this the Field Term Abroad. In this essay I describe Union College’s Field Term Abroad in Barbados, both what students do and learn, and how its outcomes differs from the conventional Dorm and Homestay terms abroad.2 Although, I favor the third type, I am familiar with all three, and have directed or co-directed five of the Dorm and Homestay terms abroad (Austria, Japan, and Vietnam), in addition to a dozen Field Terms Abroad in Barbados, Ireland, and Tasmania. What Students Do and Learn For the first week in Barbados, all the students live together, though they are sent out each day in pairs to different parts of the island to do field assignments which require them to interact with local people in order to collect data on assigned topics – a market, rum shop, fishermen, settlement patterns, etc. I believe it is important for them to be together at first, to have the support of their student colleagues while they are learning the ropes of the new culture. They are supportive of one another and share openly and freely what they are learning. But most are not yet ready to strike out on their own. By the second week, the students are acclimated enough to be moved into their host communities. This is an anxious time for them as they face the daunting task of being entirely on their own in a new community and having to go out into that community and make friends with people they don’t know and with whom--at least on the surface--they share little. They are also uncertain about their ability to collect good data. Like all anthropologists, the students are entirely dependent on the cooperation and assistance of local people to do their research. To succeed, they must develop rapport, make friends, and become somewhat integrated into the community. Being in a new culture no longer seems like “fun,” and some wonder if they wouldn’t have been better off on one of Union College’s Dorm or Homestay Terms abroad. Over the next two months, however, they will learn a good deal about the Caribbean. They also quickly discover the difference between on-campus course work and independent research. Field work has no limits; students never feel that they have done or know enough, and by living in a village with a family, they are surrounded at all times by the subjects of their study. Commented one male student, “I’m exposed to learning about this culture 24 hours a day. At Union, you can always put down the book and walk away, and when you leave a class, the lecture is over. But here the information keeps coming at you. Even when I’m at the dinner table, I’m learning new stuff.” What they don’t realize is how much they will also learn about their own culture and what it means to be American. It is often said that we can't know our own culture until we spend time in another, like the proverbial fish who doesn't know what water is until he leaps out of his tank. Lets now look at some of what students learn about the culture and society in which they were raised. The Village Living in a Barbadian village teaches many lessons in the differences between rural and urban. Most of my students come from the suburbs and have never lived in the countryside before. For them a big part of their experience in Barbados is living with people (most are part-time farmers) who are close to the land. Each morning at dawn, the students wake to the sounds of animals in the yard. They quickly begin to learn about the behavior of chickens, pigs, sheep, and cows. They witness animals giving birth and being slaughtered. They see the satisfaction families get from consuming food they have produced themselves. In their village homes, students learn to coexist with geckos, mice, cockroaches, and other critters. They become aware of how different are the sounds of the countryside, and they are struck by the darkness of the sky and the brightness of the stars at night with no city lights to diminish their intensity. A student from Long Island said it was like “living in a planetarium.” The social world of the village is quite unlike the communities they come from. In doing their required household survey, they discover that people know virtually everyone in the village. And they often know them in more than one context, not just as neighbors but perhaps also as members of the same church, as relatives, or as teammates on the same cricket or soccer team. One of the biggest adjustments students must make is to the absence of the diversions and entertainment that they are accustomed to at home. Early in their stay, there seems little to do apart from their research. At times they bored, lonely and desperate to escape the village, but they are not allowed to leave except on designated days. This isolation forces them to satisfy their needs for recreation and companionship within their communities which they do by hanging out with local people, a practice which strengthens emerging friendships and results in a good deal of informal education about Barbadian life and culture. Tempo Students must also adjust to a much slower pace of life. Languor is an accommodation to the hot, tropical climate. Accustomed to the punctuality and hectic tempo of North American life, my students are often impatient and frustrated at first, when people are late or don't show up for appointments. But over time, their compulsive haste begins to dissipate. They sense a different time, one that is unhurried and attuned to the place. As the term passes, they come to value this unhurried way of life, and by the time they leave the island most are determined to maintain a more tranquil, relaxed lifestyle when they return home. Unfortunately, that's hard to do. Race: Becoming Minority In Barbados, the students are a racial minority for the first time in their lives. During their first few weeks, they are acutely aware of being white while everyone around them is dark. Sometimes they are called "white girl" or "white boy" until villagers learn their names. They are surprised that Barbadians speak so openly about racial difference, sometimes remarking on the students’ large noses, blue veins, or freckles. This is something which is not done at home in the U.S., often out of political correctness. Concerns about race, even the very awareness of racial difference diminishes rapidly as the students make friends and become integrated into their communities. By the end of the term, most say they are rarely aware of being white. Sometimes they report being surprised when they walk by a mirror and get a glimpse of their white skin. One outcome of all this is that they develop a partial understanding of what it means to be a minority, and I think this translates into their having more empathy at home. Many of the Barbados alumni who I surveyed about the impact of their experiences mentioned a heightened empathy for African-Americans. Wealth and Materialism Many students arrive at a new awareness of just how wealthy they are as Americans, and how materialistic their own culture is. One of the strongest initial perceptions the students have of their villages is that the people are poor: many of their houses are tiny, their diets are restricted, and they have few of the amenities and comforts the students are accustomed to. The initial response of the students to the poverty they perceive around them is to feel embarrassed and even guilty that they have and consume so much. However, as the students get to know families better, they no longer see poverty, even the houses no longer seem so small. They discover that most people not only manage quite well on what they have, but are also reasonably content. In fact, most students eventually come to believe that the villagers are more satisfied with their lives than are most Americans. Whether or not this is true, it's an important perception for students, whose ideas about happiness have been shaped by an ethos which measures success and satisfaction materially. About his host family, Dan said, “I ate off the same plate and drank from the same cup every night. We only had an old fridge, an old stove, and an old TV, and a few dishes and pots and pans, but that was plenty. Mrs. H. never felt like she needed any more. And after a while, I never felt like I needed any more either.” Ellen recounted her reactions to a car that her host father had just purchased,
Many said that when they returned home from Barbados, they were surprised at the number of their possessions. Compared to Barbadians, their middle-class parents' lifestyle seemed incredibly extravagant and wasteful. When the students returned to campus they didn’t bring nearly as many things with them as they had before. Many said they no longer take luxuries like hot showers for granted. Amy wrote:
When alumni of the program were asked in a survey how they had been changed by their experience in Barbados, most believed they were less materialistic today. For example, Susan said:
I do think many Barbados students learn that they can live happily without great material resources. New Perspectives on the U.S. In trying to make sense of Barbadian society, students invariably compare village customs to the way things are done at home in the U.S. You simply cannot think or talk about the Bajan ways without contrasting it with your own way – and that leads to a better understanding of the students' own world. The students are often assisted in such comparisons by villagers who are curious and ask questions. Most villagers already have opinions about the U.S., mostly formed from watching American television and movies, from observing visiting tourists and, for some, from their own travel. The students are surprised at how much Bajans, even the lesser educated, know about the U.S. They discover, however, that the villagers' perspectives are often at odds with their own. Jay put it best, “They have a love / hate attitude toward the U.S. They think of the U.S. as a great place to shop, and that we have good movies and good fashion. But, they also think we are dumb, too talkative, too full of ourselves, too patriotic, and that our government is dangerous.” Indeed, most students learn that Bajans like the friendliness and sunny optimism of individual Americans, and they admire the economic opportunities and freedoms our society affords, but they also think middle class Americans are pampered, overly materialistic and wasteful. Bajans are puzzled about why such a wealthy nation has so many people living in poverty and in prisons, and why, unlike poor Caribbean islands, there is not good health care for everyone. They also think black people don't get a fair shake in America. Early in the term, students often find themselves defending the U.S. from criticism and stereotypes. Jay described in his journal getting very annoyed when a guest at his host family's dinner table railed against the U.S. and talked about the chemical adulteration of American chicken. He knew this to be true, but later he said, "I couldn't take it any more and fought back. I felt like an idiot afterward, defending American chicken." Over time, the students become less defensive, and more sympathetic to the criticisms, particularly to the notion of Americans as pampered and wastefully materialistic, and that the U.S. government is somewhat of an international bully. What makes our students question their own society after a few months in Barbados is their immersion in village life. They begin to see things from the perspective of their village friends. And they begin to understand the degree to which American culture, especially its media, music, entertainment, and consumer goods penetrates and often overwhelms the local culture. They see that most Bajans, for example, know more about the American President than their own Governor General and they know Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant better than their own cricket stars. When they go to the town or the beach, the students' exposure to North Americans vacationing in Barbados also influences their perceptions of themselves as Americans. They are sometimes embarrassed by what they see and hear – Americans who are loud, demanding, and sometimes condescending, in their dealings with locals. Students are appalled that tourists can come all the way to Barbados to vacation and hardly know anything about the place or its people. They are irritated that many tourists only view Barbados as a playground –a place to lounge on the beach, swim, snorkel, dive, sail, dance, and drink – and have little curiosity about its geography, history of colonization and slavery, or current underdevelopment. They are horrified when they themselves are mistaken for tourists, since they take pride in their knowledge of local culture. One outcome of this, say the Barbados alumni who were surveyed, is that when they travel today, they believe they are more curious and sensitive than other tourists. Education Students spend a good part of each day in conversations which they must direct onto the topics that they are investigating. To succeed at their studies, they learn to be inquisitive, to probe sensitively into the villager's knowledge of events and culture. They must concentrate, to actively listen to what they are being told, and later to recall it so that they can record it in field notes. They become proficient at maintaining lengthy conversations with adults and at asking pertinent questions. These are interpersonal and communication skills they bring back with them and make use of in many aspects of their own lives, and in their future work. Most students say they return home from Barbados with a more positive, more serious attitude towards education. I believe this stems from seeing the high value that villagers place on formal education, which is their chief means of upward mobility. But also their experiences in doing research. As the weeks pass, most students become deeply involved in their own research. They are surprised at how much satisfaction they get from doing something that they previously regarded as "work." Students from past terms have said they didn't see education as an end in itself, something to be enjoyed, until doing fieldwork in Barbados. Emily wrote about her attitude change after returning from the field:
Personal Development The experience of living and doing fieldwork in a village is significant for students in ways beyond their cognitive learning. Most leave the field as more adaptable, confident, self-reliant individuals.3 In a word, they become more mature. This perception is widely shared by most of the students (at the end of the term each student is asked to review his/her journal, pretending it was written by someone else, and write about how they think that person has changed). It is also shared by their parents who were interviewed. When parents were asked what, if any, changes they noticed in their sons or daughters after they had returned from Barbados, three-quarters spoke in terms of maturity and independence. If this is true, why is it so? What is it about doing fieldwork that encourages such favorable outcomes in personal development? One explanation comes from the work of developmental psychologists who argue that individual change and maturation occurs during periods of discontinuity and displacement. Put differently, individuals acquire new understandings about life, culture, and self when they must deal with changes in their environment and circumstances. In the words of William Bruggemann, personal development is about interaction in which the person is “evoked, assaulted, and impinged upon in transformative ways” (1987: 68). This is precisely what happens to students in the course of doing living and doing research on their own in a rural village. Daily they must cope with the many surprises and predicaments that come with living in a foreign culture on one’s own. It is the students' attempts to solve problems, and to resolve the discrepancies between what they formerly knew and what they are now confronted with in this new culture that leads them to a new and truer understanding of themselves. Of course, this happens to some degree in all foreign study, but not nearly to the same degree as in field programs where students live and do research on their own. Living abroad can be a powerful environment for self transformation, but merely being on a Term Abroad is no guarantee that it will happen. Much depends upon the challenges put to the students. And in this, not all terms abroad are equal. In my experience, the benefits for students of the Field Term Abroad is greater than what occurs in conventional terms abroad. This is not to diminish in any way the considerable value of such programs. The literature on the impacts of these programs is unambiguous about its many benefits. Rather what the Field Term offers is a much deeper immersion in the culture, and a curriculum based on doing independent research, which forces students to actively examine and make sense of the host society in ways that do not happen in a classroom, and this, I believe, ultimately leads to a better understanding of oneself and ones own culture. This has been made abundantly clear to me on several occasions when comparing the experiences of my students with those on a Dorm or Homestay Terms in the same country. In one instance, my students and I were invited by a professor who was directing Bucknell's term abroad in Barbados to spend an evening with him and his students who were living in dorms and taking classes on The University of the West Indies campus. The Bucknell students had academic backgrounds similar to my students. But the differences in their knowledge of Barbados and their experiences there were enormous. The Bucknell students looked upon the Union students as something akin to student Indiana Joneses. The Bucknell professor was so impressed with the Union students that he asked to pair each of his students with mine so that they could spend an afternoon with them in the villages. One irony is that while the educational outcomes of Union's Field Terms may be greater, their per student cost is from half to one third less than our Dorm and Homestay Terms in the same countries. This is largely because Field Terms do not pay tuition to a foreign university, and also village housing and meal costs are much less. Bibliography Bruggemann, W. 1987. Hope Within History. Atlanta: John Knox Press Furnham, A. and S. Bochner. 1977. Social Difficulty in a Foreign Culture. in S. Boehner (ed.) Cultures in Contact: Studies of Cross Cultural Interaction. Oxford: Pergamon. Gmelch, G. 2005. "Lessons from the Field” eds. J. Spradley and D. McCurdy, Conformity and Conflict. Boston: Pearson Publishing _______ 1997 “Crossing Cultures: Student Travel and Personal Development.” The International Journal of Intercultural Relations 21(4): 475-489. Goodwin, C.D. and M. Nacht 1988. Abroad and Beyond: Patterns in American Overseas Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hansel, B. 1988. Developing an International Perspective in Youth Through Exchange Programs. Education and Urban Society: 20(2) :177-195. Lambert, R. 1989. International Studies and the Undergraduate. Washington D. C.: American Council on Education. Rowles, G. 1978. RefLections on Experiential Field Work. pp. 173-193. in D. Ley and M. Samuels (eds.) Humanistic Geography: Prospects and Problems. Chicago: Maasroufa. Footnotes 1. I thank Sharon Gmelch, Emily Laing, and Bill Thomas for their perceptive comments on an earlier draft of this essay. 2. Elsewhere (Gmelch 2005) I have explained what students learn specifically about their own culture by doing research in Barbados. 3. Though not to the same degree, students on Dorm and Homestay terms abroad also often undergow personal development. In a study of students on a dorm style term abroad to Innsbruck, Austria, I found that students did become more indpendent and adaptable, but it was largely a result of their independent frequent traveling (3 days each week) around Europe, rather than their experiences on campus (Gmelch 1996)
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