(re)Presenting in a Global Village: Students of Color and the Study Abroad International Experience

326 Pages·2013·2.45 MB·English

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF

Allison Davis-White Eyes for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education
presented on May, 24, 2013.
Title: (re)Presenting in a Global Village: Students of Color and the Study Abroad
International Experience

Abstract approved: ________________________________________________________
Larry D. Roper

Post-secondary education institutions across the United States are increasingly allocating
resources to promote international education exchange programs as a pedagogical praxis
to develop students into global citizens. Underlying such notions of global citizenship is
the assumption that students will also develop a stronger post-national or cosmopolitan
identity as a result of an overseas academic experience. This study examined the identity
articulations of students of color who participated in study abroad, international education
exchange programs. This research is unique in that few researchers have examined issues
of identity articulation, development, and national identity in study abroad programs. In
addition, few researchers have provided a theoretical critique about what it means to
engage notions of “global citizenship” and cosmopolitanism in a trans-national world of
liquid identities, and more importantly, how that experience may be qualitatively
different for students of color who participate in international study abroad programs.
Using a critical socio-cultural perspective, this qualitative ethnographic case study
examined how four students of color experienced and made sense of their overseas
educational experience. Employing an ethnographic case study, data collection was
conducted between 2008–2010 and consisted of (a) semi-structured interviews both pre-
departure and post-return, (b) focus groups, and (c) field observations. Because little
research has been done on students of color and international education exchange
programs, this study provides additional knowledge that explores how students of color
understand and articulate their experience and why these articulations and understandings
are important for educational practitioners as they prepare students to dialogue
internationally about critical issues regarding real or imagined difference both pre-
departure and post-return.
The major findings of this study are summarized as follows:
 Participants found that as opposed to developing a post-national aesthetic towards
identity, they in fact developed more awareness of their racial/ethnic identity.
 Participants found that capitalism and globalization affected the ways in which
their international hosts perceived and related to them.
 Participants found that American racial hegemony is exported abroad and
maintained by pop culture both visual and aural and that Euro-American
compatriots also maintain that hegemony abroad through behaviors of privilege.
 This study emphasized the need for comparative critical analysis of difference and
pathologies of power, both pre-departure and post-return to allow participants the
opportunity to explore and understand these issues.
 International Exchange and Study Abroad programming needs to develop a more
diverse, critical, theoretical lens when designing, implementing, and engaging
students in international programming overseas.
© Copyright by Allison Davis-White Eyes
May 24, 2013
All Rights Reserved
(re)Presenting in a Global Village:
Students of Color and the Study Abroad International Experience

by
Allison Davis-White Eyes

A DISSERTATION
submitted to
Oregon State University

In partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the
degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Presented May 24, 2013
Commencement June 2013
Doctor of Philosophy dissertation of Allison Davis-White Eyes presented on May 24,
2013.

APPROVED:

Major Professor, representing Education

Dean of the College of Education

Dean of the Graduate School

I understand that my dissertation will become part of the permanent collection of Oregon
State University libraries. My signature below authorizes release of my dissertation to
any reader upon request.

Allison Davis-White Eyes, Author
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I express sincere appreciation to my beloved parents for the gift of life and love they have
imbued in me, in particular the perennial quest for truth and humanity. It is because of
their passion for justice that I have pursued higher education not just as a vocation but as
a calling.
I would also like to express my sincere thanks to my dissertation committee: Dr.
Larry Roper for his compassion, thoughtfulness, and patience. His guidance and wisdom
has been invaluable in navigating the rough waters of both profession and academe. Drs.
Janet Nishihara and Patti Sakurai for their sisterhood and sincere understanding of what it
means to be women of color in the academy. Dr. Joseph Orosco for always treating me as
a colleague and showing an interest in my work both professionally and academically,
and Dr. Tom Scheuermann for modeling what it means to be and to live as an educational
practitioner with integrity.
I am also grateful to Dr. Reinhard Isensee of Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
(Germany) and Dr. Rüdiger Kunow of Potsdam University (Germany) for challenging me
intellectually and theoretically. Their influence, their minds, their writing set my mind on
fire and brought to life new thoughts, new ways of asking question, and as a result new
ways of seeing the world; for this I am forever grateful.
I have to mention my colleagues in this list of appreciations because without them
I would have had a great deal of difficulty finishing this project. Their love and support
cannot go unmentioned, especially during the passing of my father which was extremely
difficult and painful. For this I am thankful to Dr. Sandy Tsuneyoshi, a person who can
smile through the greatest of difficulties, Earlean Wilson-Huey for our long lunches,
Maleah Harris for her compassion and care, Victoria Nguyen for a chance to commiserate
and then share a laugh.
Last I thank my son, Chance White Eyes, for all his patience throughout this long
journey and thanks to my best friend and partner Philipp Kneis, through him I have
learned much about myself, life and the world; without him I would not shine as brightly.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................1
1.1 Background ........................................................................................................2
1.2 Research Focus ..................................................................................................5
1.3 Research Questions ............................................................................................7
1.4 Significance of Study .........................................................................................8
1.4.1 The Need for Intercultural Sensitivity and Exploration of Identity
Articulations in a Global Context .......................................................9
1.4.2 The Need for Students of Color to Engage in International
Education Exchange Programs .........................................................11
1.4.3 The Need for a Critique of Current Student of Color Experiences
within International Education Exchange Programs ........................13
1.4.4 Personal Interest and Desire to Contribute Original Research in
this Area ............................................................................................15
1.4.5 Organization of Study .......................................................................17
2. Review of the Literature ..............................................................................................19
2.1 Approach to the Literature Review ..................................................................19
2.2 Organization of the Review of Literature ........................................................21
2.3 Clarification of Concepts .................................................................................21
2.3.1 International Education Exchange (IEE) ..........................................23
2.3.2 Culture and Cultural Community .....................................................24
2.3.3 Ethnic Group, Ethnic Identity, and Post-Ethnicity ...........................25
2.3.4 Ethnoscapes ......................................................................................25
2.3.5 Cosmopolitanism and Post-nationalism ...........................................26
2.3.6 Global Intelligence ............................................................................27
2.3.7 Globalization .....................................................................................27
TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED)
Page
2.3.8 Identity ..............................................................................................27
2.3.9 Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education .................................28
2.3.10 Positionality ......................................................................................28
2.3.11 Race ..................................................................................................29
2.3.12 Representation ..................................................................................29
2.3.13 Subalternity .......................................................................................29
2.3.14 Subjectivity .......................................................................................30
2.3.15 Transnationalism ...............................................................................30
2.4 Historical Overview of Study Abroad .............................................................30
2.5 Lack of Student of Color Engagement in International Education
Exchange: “The Absence of the Presence of Color” ......................................34
2.5.1 Lack of Research on Students of Color in International
Education Exchange .........................................................................35
2.5.2 Importance of Involving Students of Color in IEE ...........................38
2.5.3 National Security Imperative ............................................................38
2.5.4 Moral Imperative ..............................................................................40
2.6 International Education Exchange as Transformative Praxis ..........................44
2.6.1 IEE as Transformative ......................................................................45
2.6.2 Perspective Transformation as Precursor to Intercultural
Competence and Sensitivity .............................................................47
2.6.3 IEE and Identity Articulation, Negotiation, and Transformation .....55
2.6.4 Summary ...........................................................................................58
2.7 IEE and the Production of Conceptual Frameworks: Culture, Nation,
Identity .............................................................................................................59
2.8 Synthesis and Critique .....................................................................................62
TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUED)
Page
3. Methods........................................................................................................................65
3.1 Personal Disclosure Statement .........................................................................67
3.2 Philosophical Approach ...................................................................................68
3.2.1 Social Critical Theory .......................................................................69
3.2.2 Genealogy of Social Critical Theory ................................................70
3.2.3 Key Concepts and Authors of Social Critical Theory ......................72
3.2.4 Emancipatory Education (Paolo Freire) ...........................................73
3.2.5 Ideal Speech (Jürgen Habermas) ......................................................74
3.3 Key Concepts and Authors of Post-Colonial Theory ......................................75
3.3.1 Identity and Representation (Henry Giroux, L. H. M. Ling) ............77
3.3.2 Time and Space (L. H. M. Ling).......................................................78
3.3.3 Colonization and Colonizers, Imperialist Ideology (Linda
Tuhiwai Smith, David Theo Goldberg) ............................................79
3.4 Qualitative Methods and Critical Ethnographic Research ...............................80
3.4.1 Critical Ethnographic Case Study Research Design .........................80
3.4.2 Case Study ........................................................................................82
3.5 Rationale ..........................................................................................................83
3.6 Study Design ....................................................................................................86
3.6.1 Site Selection ....................................................................................86
3.6.2 Study Participants .............................................................................90
3.6.3 Sample Selection...............................................................................92
3.6.4 Demographic Data ............................................................................93
3.6.5 Strategies to protect human subjects .................................................95
3.6.6 Data and Data Collection, .................................................................96
3.6.7 Interviews..........................................................................................97
3.6.8 Narrative Environment .....................................................................99