STORYING ABROAD: NARRATIVES OF EDUCATION ABROAD BY FORMER STUDENTS OF LOWER-SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS By Sarah Kristine Whitaker A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education– Doctor of Philosophy 2025 ABSTRACT In the United States, education abroad is popularly perceived as an opportunity reserved for privileged students, to have a fun vacation inspired by the idea of the European Grand Tour or enhance their employability through distinctive experiences that increase their status and qualifications in a globalizing labor market. In either of these cultural narratives, students are anticipated to both possess and acquire significant capital through the study abroad experience and deploy it upon their return. Despite these expectations, not all study abroad students come from privileged backgrounds, especially as participation has become more accessible over the last several decades. This study used a qualitative, narrative-inspired approach, informed by a theoretical lens of capital, to explore the ways former students of lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds remember and represent their study abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed and how their narratives intersect with pre-existing cultural narratives of education abroad. I conducted a series of two narrative-inspired interviews with eight students who studied abroad in the early 21st century. The findings of this study show that themes of Investing, Exploring, and Becoming are present in the ways these individuals remember and represent their education abroad experiences. Further, their narratives both reflect and nuance existing cultural narratives about study abroad. Copyright by SARAH KRISTINE WHITAKER 2025 This dissertation is dedicated to Natalie, Caroline, Hannah, Brooke, and Owen. May you have opportunities beyond your wildest dreams to invest, explore, and become the amazing adults I know you will be. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am so grateful to all those who have helped me on my educational journey. Without you, there is no Dr. Sarah Whitaker. A heartfelt thank you to my unfailingly loving and generous parents, Ron & Kris Whitaker, who many years ago said “yes” when their 14-year-old daughter signed up for a summer trip to Honduras, not knowing (or maybe knowing?) it would kick off a lifetime of exploration. Thank you for supporting me in every adventure before and since. Anything I have ever achieved begins with you. Thanks also to my siblings, Andy Whitaker & Claire Wixted, Becky & Greg Harrington, and Eric & Jamie Whitaker for your support and encouragement. I chose the longest, most complicated route to finally join all six of you (and Mom) in the MSU degree club, but hey, save the best for last, right? Thank you to Jen Lucado, Sally Floyd, Gina Bufalini, Ashley Burtner, and the rest of the ND/PE crew for sharing triumphs and shambles for over 20 years now. I am so grateful to still have all of you in my group chat/friendship commune. Thanks also to the 2004-2005 ND Undergraduate London Program. Studying abroad truly did change my life. Thank you to the 2018 HALE “Co-heart” for all the laughs that accompanied our learning. It is a joy and privilege to call you my friends and colleagues. Special thanks to Dr. Katie Lopez, Dr. Stephanie Brewer, and Dr. Tanya Upthegrove for your encouragement and accountability in our Monday night writing group and beyond. Thanks to the College of Education at MSU for supporting me with scholarships and funding, specifically through the Sheldon Cherney Endowed Scholarship in Graduate Studies in Education Overseas, the Clyde M. Campbell Endowed Fellowship, the Margaret F. Lorimer v Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Higher Education, the Dissertation Hard Cost Funding Award, and the Support for Doctoral Students who Work Full-Time Award. Additionally, thank you to my coworkers and friends from the College of Natural Science and the College of Arts and Letters at MSU for all the grace you have offered me over these years. Thank you to my committee members, Dr. Lynn Paine, Dr. Riyad Shahjahan, and Dr. Matthew Wawrzynski. Your thoughtful consideration of my ideas and writing has made both so much sharper. It has been an honor to learn from you. A special thank you to my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Kris Renn, who has been my enthusiastic supporter since the first day of my doctoral education. I would not have reached this place (or emerged from my tortured poet era) without your intellectual guidance and unwavering patience and kindness. Finally, a sincere thank you to the eight participants who trusted me with your study abroad stories. Our conversations inspired me to laugh, think, reflect, and grow as a scholar, practitioner, and person. It truly brought me joy to spend this time with you. I know how busy your lives are and how long ago those college days sometimes feel, and I am humbled by your generosity in sharing them with me. Most importantly, thanks be to God, who makes all things possible. I have been blessed far beyond measure. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 Problem Statement ...............................................................................................................3 Research Questions ..............................................................................................................6 Rationale for the Study ........................................................................................................6 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................9 Chapter Summary ..............................................................................................................14 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................16 U.S. Education Abroad Participation and Outcomes .........................................................16 Capital and International Education ...................................................................................20 Cultural Narratives of Study Abroad .................................................................................27 Chapter Summary ..............................................................................................................35 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN ..................................................37 Worldview ..........................................................................................................................37 Narrative Inquiry Methodology .........................................................................................38 Research Design .................................................................................................................41 Participant Introductions ....................................................................................................50 Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................57 Validity and Trustworthiness .............................................................................................61 Chapter Summary ..............................................................................................................63 CHAPTER 4: THEMES IN PARTICIPANT NARRATIVES OF STUDY ABROAD ...............64 Investing .............................................................................................................................64 Exploring ............................................................................................................................83 Becoming .........................................................................................................................100 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................118 CHAPTER 5: NUANCING CULTURAL NARRATIVES OF STUDY ABROAD ..................120 Investing in Relation to Cultural Narratives ....................................................................121 Exploring in Relation to Cultural Narratives ...................................................................128 Becoming in Relation to Cultural Narratives ...................................................................131 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................................137 CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS ................................................................138 Summary of Study Design and Findings .........................................................................138 Contributions to the Literature .........................................................................................142 Implications for Practice ..................................................................................................147 Limitations .......................................................................................................................153 Directions for Future Research ........................................................................................155 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................158 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................159 vii APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS .............................................................................173 APPENDIX B: RECRUITMENT QUESTIONNAIRE HOSTED IN QUALTRICS .................178 APPENDIX C: RECRUITMENT EMAIL ..................................................................................183 APPENDIX D: PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM ..................................................................184 APPENDIX E: EMAIL ACCOMPANYING TRANSCRIPTS ..................................................187 APPENDIX F: NARRATIVE PROFILES OF PARTICIPANTS ..............................................189 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION There is a picture of me taken in the spring of 2005 framed in my living room. The day is overcast, and the wind is blowing my hair in a decidedly non-Vogue cover model sort of way. But I am standing in London on a bridge in front of the Palace of Westminster with Big Ben towering behind me, looking for all the world like I belong there, and my smile is wide and genuine. I love that picture, and I display it even now because it reminds me of my long-ago study abroad experience in all its messy but meaningful glory. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that spending my junior year abroad in London changed my life. My education abroad experience influenced my life choices, career goals, worldview, and understanding of myself, becoming an integral part of the life story I present to myself and the world. It spooks me to think how easily I could have missed out on this opportunity. I was fortunate to have had people and experiences in my life before and during college that encouraged my international aspirations. More than anything, I was lucky to have been oblivious or impervious to societal indications that I was not the type of student who should or would study abroad. As a White woman studying the social sciences, I embodied some characteristics of a typical study abroad participant, but I was missing one key element – I was not wealthy (Gore, 2005). I grew up in a family of modest means in a small midwestern city. My father was self- employed, and my mother stayed home with my siblings and me. We had an orderly life of family, school, church, and community. Most of my extended family lived in the same town; none of us ever traveled. I did well in school and always expected to go to college, though I did not know how to pay for it. My parents both attended college at various times, but their experiences as community college and commuter students bore little resemblance to the idyllic 1 four years I spent at an elite private university, supported by federal and institutional grants, work-study earnings, and student loans. After college, I moved to the city and began my career at a large and prestigious non- profit organization before pivoting into international higher education administration, the field I have worked in for the last 15 years. Eventually I moved back to my home state and took a job at a local university. I have earned a master’s degree and undertaken doctoral studies. I own a home, invest in retirement accounts, and travel for leisure. In short, I have become very solidly middle-class, and one inflection point of that evolving identity is the year I studied abroad in London. During my year in London, I was challenged and inspired in ways I never expected and that continue to influence my life to this day. By studying abroad, I built what I have now come to recognize as social, cultural, and cosmopolitan capital that both increased my ability to fit in and afforded me a measure of distinction at school, work, and in middle-class society. Relationships I built while studying abroad have opened doors to new opportunities and ideas that have enriched my life. I have navigated complex personal and professional situations using problem-solving and intercultural communication skills I practiced while abroad. I have told stories about studying abroad to illustrate qualifications in job interviews and amuse acquaintances at dinner parties. I have displayed photos of my travels on social media. Occasionally, I let a British term slip into my vocabulary. I still find myself reflecting on my education abroad experience two decades later. Inspired by my own story, this dissertation explores the stories of other students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds who pursued study abroad in the early 21st century and the ways they remember and represent that experience nearly 20 years later. We 2 were part of a boom in study abroad participation, with numbers nearly doubling as opportunities became more widely advertised, encouraged, and accessible (Institute of International Education [IIE], 2023b). As I co-created, analyzed, restoryed, and represented the narratives of my peers, I considered how these stories affirm or challenge common cultural narratives of study abroad. I found that the study abroad experiences of lower-socioeconomic status students and the ways such individuals reflect on their time abroad are more nuanced than existing cultural narratives allow. Problem Statement Education abroad1 participation by U.S. students has grown steadily over the past several decades (IIE, 2023b), though a popular perception persists that studying abroad is a privileged experience reserved exclusively for wealthy White women (Gore, 2005; Hankin, 2021; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012). Research shows participation in education abroad correlates with many beneficial student outcomes in academic, professional, and civic realms (e.g., Dwyer & Peters, 2004; Norris & Gillespie, 2009; Stebleton et al., 2013; Sutton & Rubin, 2010). In turn, such research has led to efforts over the last several decades to increase and diversify education abroad participation by students of various identities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and institution types (West, 2019). A long-standing dominant cultural narrative of education abroad positions it as an elite opportunity for those with significant existing social privilege, a vestige of the Grand Tour, when wealthy young people of the upper classes spent extended time traveling around Europe as a 1 In this dissertation, the terms education abroad and study abroad are used interchangeably. While some scholars and practitioners (most notably, The Forum on Education Abroad in their Glossary of Terms (n.d.)) differentiate study abroad as a subtype of the broader concept of education abroad, in practice and usual cultural parlance the two terms are widely used interchangeably, including by participants in this study. Therefore, I have followed their lead. I use these two terms to refer exclusively to the practice of U.S. students participating in educational programs abroad as part of seeking a degree from a U.S. college or university. In contrast, I use the terms international education and student mobility (or variations thereof) more broadly to refer to the general practice of students seeking educational experiences outside their home country. 3 finishing cultural experience to prepare them for aristocratic life and later elite professions (Contreras, 2015). This perception places very little emphasis on the academic endeavor and sees education abroad as a glorified vacation only the most elite can afford (Gore, 2005). However, recent years have seen greater education abroad participation by students from varied backgrounds, including students from lower and working-class backgrounds (Waters & Brooks, 2021). Out of this increased access grows a related but distinct cultural narrative connecting study abroad and employability, born of a neoliberal social imaginary of study abroad (Kubota, 2016). This narrative creates a mobility imperative under a discourse of employability (Courtois, 2020) which pushes students to do more in college, such as study abroad, to stand out in the labor market and gain skills and connections to compete in a globalized world (Holdsworth, 2017). The skills, credentials, and connections students build through experiences like study abroad comprise forms of cultural and social capital (Bourdieu, 1986) which are expected to help them find success in careers and society. Though Lipura and Collins (2020) referred to international student mobility as “a broad strategy for enhancing national and individual competitiveness” (p. 346), as the accessibility of a form of capital grows, the rewards of distinction lessen and individuals must search for new ways to make themselves stand out (Holdsworth, 2017). Universities, study abroad providers, and the U.S. government market education abroad opportunities using a rhetoric of competition and employability that positions study abroad as a resource to be accumulated and turned into capital (Kubota, 2016). However, cultural, social, and economic capital, including capital developed by studying abroad, are not equally accessible to everyone and not all capital provides equal advantage. Less privileged students do not 4 necessarily access the same experiences or outcomes as their more elite counterparts (Courtois, 2018b). Moreover, they do not necessarily capitalize on their experiences in the same ways when they return home (Engel & Gibson, 2020). Though students may acquire social and cultural capital through education abroad, they must deploy that capital to benefit from it in material or symbolic ways. Capital has value only in the context of its recognition as a valuable resource by others (Bourdieu, 1986). Therefore, to benefit from capital accumulated through international experiences, or what some researchers refer to as cosmopolitan capital (Bamberger, 2020; Bühlmann, 2020), students must be capable of displaying, narrating, and otherwise demonstrating said capital to others who recognize its value. Many middle- and upper-class students learn this process of engaging their social networks and narrating their experiences to demonstrate cultural capital early on, modeled by family and comprising part of the habitus. They therefore have an advantage over individuals from marginalized communities, lower-socioeconomic status, or working-class backgrounds who may not have such knowledge (Takacs, 2020). Such unawareness or discomfort with the process of displaying or narrating capital might lead these students to miss out on long-term benefits or distinction associated with education abroad. The cultural narratives that swirl around education abroad influence the ways individuals choose to represent their experiences. By virtue of their participation as non-wealthy individuals, students of lower-socioeconomic status are already breaching one traditional component of the popular Grand Tour narrative of education abroad and are challenging the middle and upper- class dominance of the study abroad employability narrative. In the following dissertation, I explore the ways individuals from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds remember and represent in the present their long-ago study abroad experiences. I asked them to narrate their 5 decision to study abroad, their education abroad experiences, and their lives since over the course of two in-depth, narrative-inspired interviews. I then explored the ways they made meaning of their experiences through three themes – Investing, Exploring, and Becoming – and how those meanings relate to existing cultural narratives of study abroad. Research Questions In this study, I explored the ways individuals reflect on their education abroad experiences after nearly two decades have passed. Focusing on the experiences of former U.S. undergraduate students who participated in an education abroad program for at least eight weeks in the early 21st century and had at least one marker of a lower-socioeconomic status background, this study sought to answer the following research questions: How do individuals of lower-socioeconomic status remember (in the past) and represent (currently) their education abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed? How do the stories of these students intersect with previously identified cultural narratives of education abroad? Rationale for the Study Education abroad is one of a set of curricular and co-curricular high-impact practices in higher education that positively benefit students’ self-reported outcomes and overall engagement (Kuh, 2008). High-impact practices are activities that require a substantial amount of time and effort, are undertaken with peers, take students outside of everyday routines, and create conditions appropriate for deep learning, where “students synthesize ideas and concepts that cumulatively make a noticeable change in students’ worldviews and self-awareness” (Tukibayeva & Gonyea, 2014, p. 20). Education abroad, therefore, has the potential to be deeply 6 influential, but not all students have equal access to such high-impact practices. Students from historically under-represented, first-generation in college, and lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds are less likely to participate (Kuh, 2008). Bourdieu (1986) suggested access to varying forms of capital determines the opportunities members of different social groups have access to in their lives. Possession of capital determines opportunities for additional accumulation, making it self-perpetuating and reproducing existing social structures. However, other scholars point to the possibility that acquisition of capital can interrupt social reproduction and contribute to social mobility (DiMaggio, 1982). These tensions underlie existing cultural narratives of education abroad. This study explores what individuals from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds remember and share about their study abroad experiences (what had an impact or lasting influence on them) and how their narratives reflect or nuance aspects of cultural narratives around study abroad. Bruner (1987) called “world making”, which occurs through narrative, the principal function of the mind. When a person recounts his or her life, it is an act of construction through interpretation, rather than a recital of some unequivocal, previously established given. This instability makes autobiographical accounts “highly susceptible to cultural, interpersonal, and linguistic influences” (Bruner, 1987, p. 694). Therefore, life narratives reflect the narrative toolkit, or models, made available in one’s culture. This toolkit could include a stock of canonical life narratives (e.g., the hero, the trickster, etc.) as well as sets of combinable pieces from which individuals can mix and match to construct their own narrative. Bruner (1987) argued that because of individuals’ reliance on culturally influenced thought and linguistic processes, those processes achieve power to structure the way an individual perceives lived experiences and organizes memory until the culture’s canonical narrative becomes not just the 7 story a person tells, but who a person is. As Bruner (1987) stated, “A life is not “how it was” but how it is interpreted and reinterpreted, told and retold” (p. 708) even to oneself. Culture narratives, though powerful, are not unchanging or unchangeable. Breaches of canonical or cultural narratives in individual’s lives provide “rich ground for innovation” (Bruner, 1991, p. 12) and open the door for challenging or nuancing the accrual of narratives that ultimately forms a tradition (Bruner, 1991). As Fivush (2010) noted, “It is as we share the past with others through language that events of the past take on different meanings and different evaluations” (p. 89), and so understanding both the content and context of the narratives individuals construct is important. This study illuminates the ways individuals of lower-socioeconomic status, who have historically been less likely to participate in study abroad, remember and represent their education abroad experiences after many years have passed, and how their narratives reflect and nuance existing cultural narratives. As access to education abroad has expanded over the early years of the 21st century, these participants challenge common cultural perceptions of who studies abroad and why. Through this research I explore the long-term meaning and value individuals who participate take from the study abroad experience, how they share their experiences, and how those experiences and narrations may be reshaping existing cultural narratives. This study draws attention to particular ways of thinking and narrating in relation to the accumulation and utilization of capital through education abroad by students of lower- socioeconomic status. The knowledge generated through this study may be useful to educators, policymakers, or individuals concerned with questions of educational access, study abroad outcomes, and students’ preparation for a globalizing world. 8 Theoretical Framework As noted already, existing cultural narratives about study abroad, the Grand Tour and study abroad employability narratives, position the experience as a means of accumulating cultural and social capital and improving labor market position. This study uses the framework of capital as a lens to consider the study abroad narratives of students of lower-socioeconomic status. In Bourdieu’s (1986) work, capital takes three primary forms, economic, cultural, and social. Economic capital comprises material assets that can be “immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the form of property rights” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 242). Cultural and social capital, meanwhile, are less necessarily tangible assets that can also be converted into economic capital under the right set of circumstances. The social context in which symbolic capital is recognized and able to be converted is a field (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). The value of a particular form of capital varies depending on the field in which it is activated and the individual’s social standing in that field. Capital has value because it “exists through esteem, recognition, belief, credit, confidence of others, and can only be perpetuated so long as it succeeds in obtaining belief in its existence” (Bourdieu, 1997/2000, p. 166). Bourdieu (1986) suggested that access to capital determines an individual’s access to opportunities, and the distribution of such access tends to be self-perpetuating. Strategies or practices of accumulation, such as the harnessing of educational credentials or experiences like education abroad, are mechanisms of social reproduction. Bourdieu (1972/1977) noted the critical role of habitus in this reproduction. Habitus is the way individuals internalize their class and social position to the point it becomes a part of their tastes and worldviews, delimiting what they see as possible or desirable. Though deeply rooted and often unconscious, habitus is not unchangeable (Bourdieu, 1987/1990). Shifts in habitus and the accrual and conversion of forms 9 of capital recognized and valued outside an individual’s field of origin can contribute to the possibility of social mobility. Cultural and Social Capital Cultural capital comprises resources like knowledge, ideas, tastes, and preferences that can be accumulated, invested, and ultimately converted into economic capital (Bourdieu, 1986). Examples might include objectified capital like books or artwork, embodied capital such as knowledge or taste, and institutionalized capital such as academic qualifications or credentials which afford distinction in a given field (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). Any of these three forms of cultural capital could result from a student’s participation in education abroad. For example, students could wear or display objects acquired in their travels to impress their friends, utilize language skills or knowledge of other cultures in their professional or personal relationships, or showcase the education abroad experience as a credential on their resume. However, the mere possession or display of cultural resources does not confer an automatic benefit. The resources must be recognized and valued by others to become cultural capital, and the cultural capital must be deployed in a field in order to realize a social benefit from it. Bourdieu (1986) conceived of social capital as resources acquired by individuals through the cultivation of relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition that can be used for personal advancement. The source of social capital lies in the structures that create varying levels of power and status for different individuals in a given group. Bourdieu (1986) theorized social capital as the means by which a person has the ability to exert power over social resources, rather than just simple networking. Social capital is less about the size of an individual’s social network than about establishing a social position within the network from which one can gain an advantage. 10 Students participating in study abroad have several opportunities for extending their social network, such as developing relationships with classmates, professors, homestay families, or others. The extent to which they can utilize these connections as social capital in the future, by leveraging power in a relationship, will depend on both their own habitus and the field in which they are operating. For example, a student might leverage social capital by requesting a letter of recommendation from a professor abroad, which might carry varying amounts of weight depending on whether the letter is submitted to a graduate school at home or in the host country. The mere possession of this social network does not necessarily lead to an advantage unless the individual can activate the social capital within an appropriate field. Cosmopolitan Capital Some scholars define cosmopolitan capital as a blend of international forms of cultural and social capital (Bühlmann, 2020). International experiences are assumed to help individuals develop specific knowledge, dispositions, skills, and connections that together create a competitive advantage for upward social and economic mobility. These increased capacities together have been termed cosmopolitan capital, which is considered valuable in competition for privileged status in globalizing social contexts (Weenink, 2008). Bühlmann (2020) noted that internationality has no intrinsic value but becomes cosmopolitan capital and gains value only when deployed and recognized in an appropriate field. Wagner’s (2007) definition of international capital (as cited in Bühlmann, 2020) suggests it is the capacity to feel at home in geographically dispersed places, composed of intertwined strands of cultural, linguistic, and social capital which are largely inherited (part of the habitus) and reinforced by international educational and occupational experiences. Situated within a Bourdieusian framework for social 11 and cultural capital, cosmopolitan capital benefits those who exhibit traits recognized as valuable in a global field (Bourdieu, 1986). International experiences facilitate the generation of cosmopolitan capital, but capital is deployed and reproduced through what is “embodied and performed within and following those direct experiences” (Engel & Gibson, 2020, p. 3) such as conversational references to travel, wearing or displaying cultural artifacts, or customizing behavior to demonstrate belonging or familiarity in a particular cultural context. These cultural experiences combine with expanded social capital, as students develop and situate themselves within new social networks, to create cosmopolitan capital (Engel & Gibson, 2020). Igarashi and Saito (2014) identified cosmopolitan capital as “an openness to foreign others and cultures [that] can be acquired as part of habitus (an embodied state) and through consumption of foreign commodities (an objectified state)” (p. 3). Exposure to international travel and other cultures as part of the habitus facilitates cosmopolitan capital development (Murphy-Lejeune, 2002). The concept of cosmopolitan capital creates a framework for understanding the ways elite members of society acquire and deploy internationality as a means of controlling access to elite positions (Bühlmann, 2020). As Maxwell (2018) noted, opportunities to increase cosmopolitan capital are traditionally more often sought after by wealthy individuals and families. Education abroad, traditionally undertaken by affluent White students in the United States, can be seen as one of the mechanisms that legitimate the desirable nature of cosmopolitan capital despite its unequal distribution throughout the population, and therefore contribute to the creation and reproduction of elite status (Igarashi & Saito, 2014). However, education abroad is no longer exclusive to elite students. Furthermore, cosmopolitan capital can interact with and build upon existing cultural and social capital, even if 12 the existing capital is not elite. Newly generated cosmopolitan capital can work in concert with existing capital, such as community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005), to create resources non-elite students can deploy in fields they encounter (Engel & Gibson, 2020). Nonetheless, cosmopolitan capital should not be perceived as a guaranteed pathway to positional advantage. Imperfect understandings, shifting hierarchies, and varying contexts can obscure or cause individuals to miscalculate the value of their investment (Courtois, 2018a). Narrative Capital The theory of narrative capital bridges this study’s conceptual framework of capital and its narrative inquiry methodology. The capacity to formulate and express certain kinds of narratives also functions as a form of capital through which additional capital can be deployed and reproduced. In his study investigating student experiences at an elite college, Takacs (2020) defined narrative capital as “the library of a person’s experiences capable of being turned into interesting stories, and their skill at constructing and deploying these stories to signal social status” (p. 257). Narrative capital acts as a qualitative credential that can be conveyed in a variety of professional and personal contexts (Takacs, 2020). For example, elite hiring tactics ask individuals to narrate themselves in ways that demonstrate polished and culturally competent identities, such as in cover letters or interview situations (Rivera, 2015). The capacity to create, recount, and garner recognition through narrative is another way of signifying belonging or possession of resources. To profit from narrative capital, an individual must also have narrative capability, or “the substantive freedom to deploy one’s narrative capital in order to be heard and acknowledged” (Watts, 2008, p. 108). This freedom is often tied to an initial recognition that the stories a person has to tell are valuable. Fivush (2010) noted, 13 Each individual is situated in a particular place in cultural and historical time, in which specific enduring aspects of the individual are valued in particular ways, e.g., race, gender, class… One’s place in the world partly determines the types of experiences one might have and how one might be allowed to communicate these experiences to others (p. 90). In this way, stories function as forms of symbolic or linguistic cultural capital, as the individual deploying them must know how to use the language of storytelling in strategic and socially appropriate ways (Watts, 2008). However, narrative capital is not exclusively linguistic. The generation of narrative capital requires having experiences capable of being transformed into stories. Such opportunities are often predicated on having cultural preferences or habitus that make a person more likely to have experiences that are considered interesting (Takacs, 2020). Narrative capital, then, is situated at the intersection of various forms of embodied cultural capital, including linguistic capability, confidence, and comfort in risk-taking (which itself is intertwined with cultural, social, and economic capital), and a habitus that preferences certain types of activities or experiences (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). Chapter Summary In the preceding chapter, I have addressed the context of the problem, the research question, rationale for the study, and theoretical framework. This qualitative study uses narrative inquiry to investigate the ways individuals from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds remember and represent their education abroad experiences after many years, and further explores how the narratives of these individuals relate to existing cultural narratives of study abroad. Students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds have historically been less likely 14 to participate in study abroad. As efforts persist to broaden access to these opportunities, an investigation of the long-term meanings participants make of their experiences offers important insight into their value. Using a theoretical lens of capital, this study creates knowledge that may be valuable to educators or policymakers who support study abroad programs or are concerned with educational opportunities for students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds. In the next chapter, I turn to the existing literature on education abroad and capital to situate this study within the current scholarly landscape. 15 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW In the following literature review, I situate this study within the existing scholarship on U.S. study abroad participation and outcomes, social and cultural capital in international student mobility, and cultural narratives surrounding education abroad. As my study asked participants to narrate their experiences during and since studying abroad, I begin by reviewing previous literature on outcomes related to U.S. education abroad. I then move into a discussion of existing literature on the role of capital in study abroad and international student mobility. Much of this literature focuses on degree-seeking international students, as well as Canadian and European exchange students. When a social and cultural capital lens has been used to examine questions about U.S. education abroad, the literature has tended to focus on the influence of existing capital on students’ decisions to study abroad, rather than engage with the idea of social and cultural capital as an outcome of education abroad participation. Finally, I explore the presence of the previously identified cultural narratives of study abroad, the Grand Tour and the study abroad employability narrative, in existing literature. I analyze literature related to explicit media and pop cultural representations of education abroad, as well as implicit cultural messaging. In doing so, I show how these cultural narratives dominate U.S. perceptions of study abroad and frame students’ experiences prior to, during, and after studying abroad. U.S. Education Abroad Participation and Outcomes In the first decade of the 21st century, the number of U.S. students studying abroad nearly doubled, growing from 143,590 in 1999/2000 to 260,327 in 2008/2009 (IIE, 2023b). For many years, the population of U.S. students who participate in education abroad has been and continues to be disproportionately White and female (IIE, 2023a). In addition, students who 16 receive a Pell Grant as part of their financial aid study abroad at lower rates than those who do not (Bell et al., 2022). These realities are reflected in the ways education abroad is popularly understood in the United States through existing cultural narratives of the Grand Tour and study abroad employability. Over the past few decades, research has demonstrated the value of education abroad for students’ academic, professional, and civic development. Participation in study abroad positively affects students’ academic performance and engagement (Picard et al., 2009). Sutton and Rubin (2010) showed four-year graduation rates were 13-31% higher for African American students at the University of Georgia who participated in study abroad compared to a control group. They further found study abroad was associated with higher student retention rates, academic performance in English and math classes, and overall degree completion percentages (Sutton & Rubin, 2010). Furthermore, education abroad experiences build soft skills employers value, such as problem-solving, communication, and tolerance for ambiguity (Dwyer, 2004). Norris and Gillespie (2009) found education abroad influenced globally oriented careers. The recent graduates they surveyed were more likely than previous generations to connect their study abroad experiences to subsequent interest in working abroad or working for a multinational corporation. In Van Hoof and Verbeeten’s (2005) study, students who participated in education abroad indicated it increased their professional opportunities, with 91% of returned students surveyed believing their experience to be relevant, very relevant, or extremely relevant to their future job opportunities. Meanwhile, Stebleton et al. (2013) noted that students who returned from study abroad displayed a developing sense of autonomy, demonstrated feelings of greater responsibility about global issues, and were more concerned about international politics and 17 global current events. In addition, research has found that students acquire greater skills in foreign language, intercultural sensitivity, self-reliance, confidence, flexibility, and ability to cope with difficult situations (McLeod & Wainwright, 2009; Stebleton et al., 2013; Sutton & Rubin, 2010). Research on the impacts of study abroad has largely conformed to the assumption that changes resulting from study abroad should be apparent immediately after the experience ends (Twombly et al., 2012). There is limited research about the long-term impacts of education abroad, much of which takes a quantitative or mixed-methods approach. Dwyer and Peters (2004) reported the results of a large-scale, quantitative survey of IES Abroad participants from 1950 to 1999, which examined the impact of education abroad on students’ academic, professional, and personal lives. They found participating in study abroad influenced students’ career paths, worldviews, and self-confidence (Dwyer & Peters, 2004). Paige et al. (2009) conducted a study of U.S. study abroad program alumni from 1960 to 2005 using a mixed- methods approach involving questionnaires and semi-structured interviews that focused on the impact of respondents’ study abroad experiences on their lives. They found positive associations between education abroad and long-term global engagement, in addition to education and career impacts. Both Dwyer and Peters (2004) and Paige et al. (2009) found that study abroad participants perceived education abroad as an influential personal development experience. Dwyer and Peters (2004) noted “data from the more than 3,400 respondents shows that studying abroad is usually a defining moment in a young person’s life and continues to impact the participant’s life for years after the experience” (para. 3). However, DeGraaf et al. (2013) rightly pointed out that these studies and others in a similar vein lack a comparable control group, therefore making it difficult to establish causality. 18 In their own mixed-methods study, DeGraaf et al. (2013) explored the impacts of a semester abroad on students’ civic engagement and personal development, using a control group for comparison. Through an online survey and follow up interviews with a small number of respondents, the researchers found that the influence of a study abroad experience was strongest for those alumni most recently returned. Qualitative research exploring the long-term impacts of study abroad is also limited. The investigators in the Study Abroad Evaluation Project, detailed in Carlson et al. (1990), conducted 30-minute phone interviews with respondents who studied abroad between five and 20 years prior, to learn about the long-term impacts of their experiences. They found that graduate degree attainments of study abroad participants far exceeded that of all bachelor’s degree recipients. Furthermore, 59% of interviewees indicated the study abroad experience was directly relevant to their career and employment practices. Qualitative research exploring the influence of study abroad retrospectively is often limited to specific study abroad programs or student groups. For example, Mistretta (2008) explored the influence of participation in Buffalo State College’s long-standing Siena, Italy program through in-depth phenomenological interviews and found influences in seven areas of participants’ lives, including intellectual, personal, and professional development, international perspectives, civic involvement, family life, and hobbies. The study found varying degrees of influence, from life-enhancing to life-changing. In a more recent study, Dufour (2020) investigated the long-term impact of heritage-seekers studying abroad as part of North Park University’s long-standing exchange program in Sweden. Focusing on the ways participants ascribed meaning to their experience abroad, Dufour (2020) explored the ways meaning may evolve as individuals continue to develop over time. She found education abroad provided 19 students with space for self-reflection and the development of an open-minded orientation toward others. As study abroad programs continue to increase in popularity, additional research is needed to identify the long-term meaning and value individuals ascribe to their experiences abroad (Twombly et al., 2012). In addition, more qualitative research that privileges the experiences and meaning making of the participants themselves over quantitative measures of success like grade point average or salary is needed. This kind of research, like the current study, can help ensure students, parents, faculty, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the study abroad process understand the value of the experience, particularly for students of lower- socioeconomic status who may benefit from the accumulation of capital through education abroad. Capital and International Education For many students, international mobility is a means of accumulating cultural and social capital and improving labor market position. However, these methods of capital accumulation are mediated by social structures and relations that encourage or constrain an individual’s ability to access international education, and furthermore, to use it for a strategic advantage (Waters & Brooks, 2021). There is limited literature exploring capital as an outcome of U.S. students’ education abroad experiences. Existing literature relating cultural and social capital to education abroad is more likely to frame it as an input and focus on its role in driving student intent or participation in study abroad (e.g., Salisbury et al., 2009; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012). However, a broader body of research exists which draws on ideas of capital to examine the experiences of international degree-seeking students or intra-European exchange students. In the following 20 sections, I review this literature in order to situate the current study and explicate various approaches to understanding capital in international education. Capital and U.S. Students’ Decisions about Study Abroad Though previous research indicates that study abroad can have positive effects on graduation rates, future career opportunities and earnings, and civic engagement (Dwyer & Peters, 2004; Norris & Gillespie, 2009; Picard et al., 2009; Sutton & Rubin, 2010), when students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds try to counter dominant narratives by studying abroad, they often face systemic, institutional, and personal barriers. Financial barriers are consistently cited as a reason students choose not to study abroad (de Jong et al., 2010). Salisbury et al. (2009) found that students receiving federal grant aid to pay for college were less likely to intend to study abroad than other students. Whatley (2017) explored study abroad participation among students in the University of Georgia system and found that having student loans negatively influenced the likelihood students would study abroad. Material resources like financial aid, as well as cultural resources like participation in extracurricular activities and social resources like faculty and peer support, are predictors of intent to study abroad (Salisbury et al., 2009; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012; Whatley, 2018). Socioeconomic status also influences actual participation in education abroad, not just intent to participate. In a large-scale study utilizing data from the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education, Lingo (2019) found that the percentage of students intending to participate and actually participating in study abroad both increased in tandem with the level of parental education, which he used as a proxy for socioeconomic status. Stroud (2015) explored factors related to participation in study abroad, not intent to study abroad, and found that 21 transferring from another college, financial obstacles, and worrying about graduating on time were negatively associated with participation in study abroad. Financial barriers are not the only reason for stratification in access to study abroad. Students’ social networks, family situations, and capacity to navigate academic culture also have implications for study abroad participation. Simon and Ainsworth (2012) used interviews to explore the influence of existing cultural capital on students’ study abroad participation. They focused on the role of habitus in shaping study abroad participation and found that for some students travel goals were driven by a global imagination, or a mindset that allowed them to envision life beyond their national boundaries. For some, this was a result of family travel experiences like taking international vacations, while for others having foreign-born parents influenced their ability to imagine themselves abroad. Students who participated in study abroad, who were largely of middle-class backgrounds, placed particular emphasis on the role of travel in becoming, as they called it, cultured (Simon & Ainsworth, 2012). The cost of study abroad goes beyond the sticker price and includes opportunity costs related to lost earnings and time away from family or other responsibilities, which may disproportionately affect students of lower-socioeconomic status. Such students are also more likely to face family resistance, often due to a habitus that may not value travel or associate the idea of travel with positive connotations because of personal or historical experiences (Thompson-Jones, 2012). Students also face differential access to international opportunities based on institutional and geographical factors. Institutional characteristics like a geographical setting outside an urban area and higher enrollment of Pell Grant recipients are associated with more limited study abroad activity (Whatley et al., 2024). 22 However, Perkins (2020) made an important point that the aspects of social and cultural capital that had previously been investigated in connection with participation in U.S. study abroad were those typically valued in White and high-income environments. Instead, Perkins (2020) used Yosso’s (2005) model of community cultural wealth to advocate for an anti-deficit approach to research on students of color participating in study abroad. Perkins (2020) found that students of color demonstrated aspirational capital (Yosso, 2005) as they anticipated gains in skills and cultural knowledge that motivated them to participate. She also found such students displayed motivating social capital in the form of family and peers who supported them in going abroad, rather than hierarchical social capital based on relationships with faculty or administrators (Perkins, 2020). Simon and Ainsworth (2012) similarly found that students relied on social networks of parents, family members, and friends for information and support related to study abroad, though students of color were more likely to indicate the support they received was limited to emotional support and verbal encouragement, rather than valuable information or monetary funds. Cultural Capital and Distinction as Outcomes of International Education International education is sometimes described as a form of cultural capital (Waters & Brooks, 2021). Cultural capital can be institutionalized in the form of academic qualifications or credentials, which can then be compared and converted into economic capital in the labor market. Much of the literature on international education and social status supports the idea that education abroad can boost students’ employability in the job market (e.g., Crossman & Clarke, 2010; Dwyer, 2004; Franklin, 2010). However, the knowledge and cultural understanding gained through international experience can have an influence beyond the labor market and serve as a 23 signal of elite status more broadly, becoming a symbol for the cosmopolitan outlook and advanced cultural skills that are favored in a globalizing world (Ballatore & Ferede, 2013). Lee (2019) documented the attempts of Western students at a Chinese branch campus to position themselves advantageously against various other groups, including local Chinese students, immobile peers from their home countries, international students from the Global South, and fellow mobile students from the Global North who only move within their Western comfort zone (for example, U.S. student peers who chose to study abroad in Western Europe). Netz and Finger (2016) argued that education abroad is just one of multiple ways students choose to distinguish themselves, and within education abroad, these distinctions get finer as the opportunity becomes less exclusive. They found German students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds sought distinction through participating in longer stays abroad or earning prestigious international scholarships (Netz & Finger, 2016). Similarly, Cranston et al. (2020) found that participating European students framed international work placements (internships) as part of a hierarchy of experiences which convey distinction, and even within international internships there were grades of distinction based on the host country or work placement location. In Prazeres’s (2018) study, Canadian students participating in study abroad sought distinction through being “at home” in the daily life of another culture (particularly in the global South) more than through the quality of their academic institutions or accomplishments abroad. A small body of research has examined cultural and social capital in students’ lives after graduating with an international credential. Looking at the goals and post-graduate outcomes of international students completing degrees in the United Kingdom., Findlay et al. (2012) found that many students treated international education as a stepping-stone toward a career goal, often in their home country or a third country, rather than in the location where they attained their 24 international credential. Collins et al. (2017) found the ability of international alumni from three East Asian universities to deploy their credentials for professional success varied widely depending on the ways international credentials were recognized in different contexts. This finding highlights the important role field and social capital play in the valuation of cultural capital. Yet, the extent to which students’ decisions to study abroad are made with strategic positioning in mind is unclear (Trower & Lehmann, 2017). In their 2014 study, Bomi and Megehee found that achieving a higher social status was a motivator for study abroad, but not a strong one. Likewise, Waters and Brooks (2010) found that elite students from the United Kingdom who undertook a full degree abroad did so largely without any expressed motivation for higher status; in fact, some of the interviewees thought a degree from abroad might harm their chances in the labor market but proceeded anyway. In other research, adventure and personal development were found to be bigger drivers of overseas education than possible future advantages in employment (Prazeres, 2017; Waters et al., 2011). However, Waters and Brooks (2010) noted that just because students were not motivated by distinction does not mean they did not accrue it. Though students might not start out with the intention of developing capital and status, they may discover on or after their educational travel that it does in fact afford them benefits of prestige and distinction (Prazeres, 2019). Social Capital as an Outcome of International Education Friendships developed among co-national students abroad, as well as among international students from different countries, can function as social capital (Beech, 2018). Researching international students in the United States, Rose-Redwood & Rose-Redwood (2019) developed a typology of social connections, which is useful for considering the types of social ties U.S. 25 students might develop while studying abroad. The types they identified included self- segregators who interacted socially only with co-nationals, exclusive global mixers who engaged socially with other international students, inclusive global mixers whose friend groups included co-national, international, and host country students, and a very small number of host interactors whose primary social contacts were with host country students. Self-segregation of international students (including study abroad participants) is generally viewed negatively, however such interpretations ignore the value of social capital that is not situated within the host institution or host country. Social capital accumulated through networks of co-national and third country international students can potentially result in access to resources and opportunities long after a student leaves a particular host institution (Rose- Redwood & Rose-Redwood, 2019). Formal institutions can contribute to, but do not necessarily dominate, the means of production of social capital (Bourdieu, 1986). An international student’s social capital development is not limited to just a host- institution or host-country context. Citron (2002) identified a “third culture” of study abroad that formed among the students in the program he observed. The group developed sets of norms and references different from both their hosts and their family and friends back home (Citron, 2002). Allison et al. (2012) similarly found that students abroad experienced their peer group as a stable home base from which to experience the host culture, using their social bonds to help ground them in an unfamiliar culture. Moon and Shin (2019) found that international students in Japan developed relationships among themselves which acted as “bridging” social capital, which students believed gave them access to valuable resources in and through each other. Moon and Shin (2019) suggested this social capital was a meaningful influence on students’ career plans after graduation. International 26 friendships can introduce students to the possibility of transnational careers (Findlay et al., 2012). Furthermore, when students successfully develop new relationships and achieve educational success, informal recognition from peers also strengthens their credentials among more indirect associates (Rienties et al., 2015). Whether students are aware or not, status recognition is an inherently social endeavor. Increased status from study abroad is only possible when others recognize and value the experience (Prazeres, 2019). This way of thinking about social capital formation in international higher education situates it as part of a larger process of developing global social networks with implications beyond the international education experience itself (Rose-Redwood & Rose-Redwood, 2019). This alternative form of social capital has the potential to play an important role in students’ lives long past graduation. Uncoupling social capital development in international education from the institutionalist paradigm which focuses exclusively on utilization of social resources and opportunities in the host institution or host country creates space for a richer understanding of the value students create out of their international educational and social experiences. Cultural Narratives of Study Abroad In the following section, I explore literature related to the two cultural narratives of study abroad presented in the first chapter, the Grand Tour narrative and the study abroad employability narrative. Both cultural narratives are at play in a neoliberal social imaginary that constructs study abroad as a tool for students to develop a competitive edge in the global labor market, but also promises the experience will offer opportunities for self-discovery and personal growth (Kubota, 2016). As part of the cultural discourse, study abroad is already framed and predetermined for U.S. students before they ever leave the country through cultural and media influences. Such rhetoric “plays a central role in framing students’ expectations of their time 27 abroad, in directing how they understand themselves in relation to the host culture, and in shaping how they publicly reflect on their study abroad experiences [emphasis added]” (Hankin, 2021, p. 17). The Grand Tour Narrative Gore (2005) conducted a discourse analysis of perceptions and attitudes toward study abroad from within the academy. She considered how faculty and students defined education abroad, whether those definitions devalued the activity, and how those definitions contributed to the marginalization of study abroad within U.S. higher education. Gore (2005) found a prevailing belief permeating the academy and beyond that equated study abroad with the old notion of the European Grand Tour, a leisurely sojourn for the purpose of general cultural acquisition. She summarized, Over and over, U.S. study abroad has been described as a Grand Tour experience. Each such discursive event further associates travel and cultural acquisition with leisure. Study abroad is portrayed as a personal experience designed not to gain purposeful knowledge so much as to gain social standing and enjoy private pleasure (Gore, 2005, p. 32). The Grand Tour arose as a finishing educational and cultural experience for the British aristocracy in the late 18th century. People in the United States adopted the tradition shortly after, and it became an educational imperative for young men of means and those in pursuit of social mobility. More recently, the term has been used as a derogatory description for international study “often suggesting leisurely, desultory, elitist, unintellectual, and unprofessional aims” (Gore, 2005, p. 28). Gore (2005) argued that this dominant narrative has a two-fold effect of marginalizing study abroad within the academy and influencing the design and delivery of contemporary study abroad programs. 28 Gore (2005) demonstrated the general historical inaccuracy of the belief equating study abroad with the Grand Tour, tracing the stated aims and experiences of the initiators and participants of early study abroad programs to showcase the academically rigorous, professionally enhancing, and non-luxurious nature of the experiences. Contreras (2015) further explored the discourse of early study abroad program designers to demonstrate how education abroad was distinct from the Grand Tour both in goals and design. The initial instigators emphasized the importance of students returning to continue their studies at home after study abroad, constructing it as an intermediary, rather than culminating, experience. However, as Gore (2005) noted, historical accuracy is irrelevant to the discursive construction of belief. The belief that study abroad is similar to or a modern version of the Grand Tour is prevalent within U.S. society, from within the academy, government, popular media, and other sites of power. Birindelli (2020) explored the Grand Tour notions that short-term travelers to Italy, particularly Florence, carry with them. She traced these perceptions to popular media representations that emphasize a “Florence without Florentines”, or a space frozen in popular imagination in the Renaissance and existing today as a backdrop for travelers’ personal development. In the Grand Tour narrative, students perform a type of privileged migration, wherein they relocate temporarily to engage with the foreign for a defined period before returning to normal life at home (Breen, 2012). The host country and culture are but a backdrop for the self-improvement of the visitor. Hankin (2021) also identified the romanticized travel tropes of the past evoked through the association of study abroad with the Grand Tour. In genres associated with adventure and romance, the protagonist is often depicted as young and naïve, embarking on a journey of self-discovery against a picturesque background. The Grand Tour functions as a global cultural script for engaging this social imaginary. 29 Travel as a means for personal enrichment has long been an activity of the leisure class. Veblen (1899/2009) argued that the privileged classes’ need to convert extra time and money into prestige develops behaviors and values that become standards for entire cultures, such as the Grand Tour. In this context, Stowe (1994) argued that individuals accrued social benefits along with the personal pleasures of a European travel experience. He wrote, “The trip to Europe, a luxury made possible by the accumulation of excess capital, became a token of bourgeois respectability” (Stowe, 1994, pp. 161-162). Echoes of this perception can still be seen in cultural narratives of study abroad. Some designers of early programs focused on the professional preparation and contacts students would acquire through study abroad, rather than simple cultural familiarity (Contreras, 2015). American higher education has a long history of training individuals for professions, whether through early liberal education or the practical curricula that largely supplanted it with the rise of land-grant institutions in the mid-19th century. Early adopters of formal study abroad programs intended their design to enhance students’ professional preparation (Contreras, 2015). Despite this heritage, the Grand Tour narrative does not ascribe such practical functional worth to study abroad programs (Gore, 2005). The Grand Tour perception of study abroad as a leisurely cultural acquisition pursuit for wealthy White women sets the experience up to be demeaned as offering no professional preparation or advantages (Gore, 2005), a contrast and contradiction to the study abroad employability narrative. The Study Abroad Employability Narrative The idea of global competition underpins a neoliberal social imaginary of education (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). The discourse of employability emphasizes students have individual responsibility to create their own futures through the experiences and education they choose. 30 Individual responsibility is a key part of neoliberal education discourse. It frames mobility as an entrepreneurial freedom, of which students are expected to take advantage or else risk being left behind (Courtois, 2020). Those who lack the privilege of mobility are framed as making a choice not to accumulate valuable capital. Contemporary youth are faced with a variety of options for their education, career, and future, and are held responsible by society for the choices they make (Brooks, 2008). Ogden (2007) labeled the 21st century study abroad participant “today’s colonial student” (p. 35). He identified a colonial education abroad system as supporting the privileged position of the U.S. student in contrast to the local, imposing a U.S. American ethnocentric system that “perpetuates notions of our own elitism, power and domination” (Ogden, 2007, p. 43). Zemach- Bersin (2009) examined marketing materials from universities and study abroad providers and interviewed undergraduate students about their experiences abroad. She found universities and providers market study abroad as a form of social currency and their advertisements evoke “the sexual and gendered language of colonialism” (Zemach-Bersin, 2009, p. 307). The process of education abroad is therefore lined with neoliberal underpinnings that focus on political and economic interests, largely through the building of individual mobility capital. Mobility capital is a subset of human capital wherein an individual’s skills are enhanced by the international experience of living abroad (Carlson, 2011). The ability for students to be mobile is a function of both privilege and neoliberal subjectivity (Courtois, 2019). By focusing more on mobility capital than academic progress, institutional and government structures lead students to see mobility as a strategy of distinction, rather than an integrated educational experience (Courtois, 2019). As students increasingly take to heart the discourse that they must gain additional experiences to set themselves apart from their peers (Holdsworth, 2017), this 31 strategy of distinction becomes a mobility imperative (Courtois, 2020), which spurs increasing social exclusion in the job market (Lehmann, 2012). Meanwhile, some students have greater access to mobility capital depending on their background characteristics, including socioeconomic status. Neoliberal education systems position cosmopolitanism, an understanding and openness to other cultures often gained through living abroad, as a desirable trait of a person who can thrive as a worker in a competitive global economy (Igarashi & Saito, 2014). This cultural narrative encourages students to study abroad as a means of making themselves more competitive in the job market. The neoliberal discourse of employability instructs students that it is no longer enough to simply earn a degree, that degree must now include additional experiences (Cranston et al., 2020). Any experience abroad is positioned as beneficial, regardless of the location, duration, or topic of study. Barkin (2018) summarized this as the binary discourse of going, in which travel is considered educative without any additional considerations. Positioning such travel as an expectation, a box to be checked off on the way to a career, reinforces what Holdsworth (2017) called the “cult of experience” (p. 296), in which students accumulate experiences as capital to gain an edge over their peers. As opportunities become more broadly accessible, students are required to do even more to set themselves apart (Holdsworth, 2017). Students who begin with the most capital or greatest privilege are most likely to emerge victorious in this competition. Like credential inflation, this extra-credential arms race maintains and exacerbates existing social inequalities (Lehmann, 2012). Messages abound, therefore, from cultural, media, and institutional sources, reinforcing the study abroad employability narrative. This cultural narrative teaches students their time abroad will make them more competitive in a globalizing economy and labor market, implying 32 they are not adequate or competitive already and cannot become so without gaining such experiences, while also implying that traveling abroad is all they need to do to be competitive. Learning through travel is positioned as automatic and unproblematic, despite previous research showing travelers often make meaning of their experiences based on stereotypes and misconceptions (Falk et al., 2007). The study abroad employability narrative frames the experience as one of individual self-interest. Education abroad is commodified as a shortcut to employability and global citizenship for U.S. students, creating a dangerous implication that students have the right and power, by virtue of their money or privilege, to define, change, mold, and use the world they are exploring to suit their own personal desires (Kortegast & Kupo, 2017). I next turn to the role of media and cultural representations in perpetuating these narratives. Representations of U.S. Education Abroad in Media and Culture The social imaginary of study abroad promises a competitive edge for student participants (Kubota, 2016), but universities and study abroad programs themselves are also in competition. As part of an increasingly market-oriented educational field, study abroad programs respond by marketing themselves through text and imagery. Bishop (2013) argued the experiences of study abroad students are “anticipated, situated, and mediated in a way that is too often ignored” (p. 410). For example, Miller-Idriss et al. (2019) examined university website images of students abroad and identified categories of visual elements, such as students jumping in front of landmarks, gazing at horizons, or spreading their arms wide, that situate study abroad as a time of pleasure and personal transformation. These messages both influence and recreate dominant narratives and cultural expectations about the broader student experience at elite U.S. higher education institutions as a time of personal development and social connection (Reynolds, 33 2014). Such images frame students’ expectations of the kinds of experiences they should want and expect abroad, as well as how to document and display them (Hankin, 2021). Other analyses have focused on representations of U.S. students in contrast to the “Other” abroad. Onkenekwyu et al. (2017) found representations of study abroad in Africa demonstrated colonialist attitudes through their positioning of mostly White female students interacting with native populations. In Bishop’s (2013) study of photographs on university study abroad websites, she noted that regardless of the location of the pictures, none “feature a student figure who has darker skin than the depicted members of the host culture” (p. 403). These constructions teach students who studies abroad and who and what is studied abroad. Many depictions of travel and study abroad in popular culture feature wealthy young White women as protagonists and draw upon romanticized travel tropes of the past, in which journeys of self-discovery are set against famous landmarks or picturesque landscapes (Hankin, 2021). Jackson (2005) noted that such representations may alienate students who do not identify with this wealthy, White depiction. In Simon and Ainsworth’s (2012) study, a participant reported “Black people just don’t engage in that kind of stuff. We’re kind of like, that’s a white thing to study abroad” (p. 11). Thomas (2013) similarly argued that students of marginalized identities may fail to identify with these representations and discourses in the popular imagination, associating study abroad with images of privilege from which they are excluded. Students from minoritized or low-income backgrounds may lack role models for study abroad both in the media and their personal social contexts. Using semi-structured interviews with participants in one study abroad program to Italy, Nguyen & Coryell (2015) found popular culture and social imaginaries were important factors in students’ motivations to study abroad. Dominant narratives about study abroad often do not connect to the life experiences of 34 these students, making them less likely to choose to participate and more likely to miss out on potential positive outcomes of education abroad. Narrowing in on the effects of these discourses on students, Carlson’s (2011) work reframed the question of why students choose to go abroad from a decision to a process. Carlson’s (2011) argument situated student mobility as a socially embedded process, created and maintained by messaging through societal structures and discourses. Doerr (2012) pointed out the discourse of adventure in education abroad media that both maintains the unequal power dynamics between home and host culture and forces students to take on the colonial role of explorer or adventurer, on a quest for personal development and economic success. Beech (2014) found international students make decisions about study abroad and choose their destinations under the influence of personally or collectively constructed geographic imaginaries, often based on media images and messages, which are themselves reflective of power structures. This dissertation seeks to illuminate the interplay between the study abroad narratives of former students of lower-socioeconomic status and these broader cultural perceptions of study abroad. Given the power of the various cultural messages about study abroad that students are steeped in just by virtue of being members of society, there is value in more deeply exploring the ways those narratives inform students’ education abroad experiences, memories, and representations. Chapter Summary In the preceding literature review, I situated my study within the existing scholarly literature on U.S. education abroad, as well as the broader world literature on international student mobility and capital. By analyzing existing studies of U.S. education abroad outcomes, I demonstrated the current state of longitudinal or retrospective qualitative research focused on 35 students of lower-socioeconomic status who participated in study abroad. I then moved on to analyze literature that used concepts of social and cultural capital to explore education abroad, which primarily situate capital as an input in the study abroad decision-making process. I further contextualized my study by exploring literature that focuses on the role of capital in degree- seeking international student mobility or intra-European exchanges. Finally, I explored the dominant cultural narratives of the Grand Tour and study abroad employability that currently frame U.S study abroad as a personal and professional development opportunity largely limited to privileged students, demonstrating the ways these narratives are constructed and analyzed in existing literature and perpetuated through media and cultural messaging. 36 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN In this study, I use qualitative methodology and narrative-inspired methods to explore the ways returned study abroad students of lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds remember and represent their education abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed, as well as how their narratives intersect with larger cultural narratives of study abroad. In the following chapter, I lay out my worldview, methodology, and research design, and introduce the reader to the study’s eight participants. Finally, I discuss in detail the data analysis process and offer thoughts on validity and trustworthiness in the context of narrative inquiry. Worldview As a qualitative narrative researcher, I situate myself within an epistemological perspective that understands knowledge as constructed and contextual. As a critical constructivist, I also seek to ask how discourses and systems of power exert influence over meaning making (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2002). Within this framework, I rely on narrative inquiry methodology and qualitative research methods, including narrative-inspired interviewing and analysis, to elicit, co-construct, and interpret data. I align myself with an interpretivist paradigm that acknowledges multiple realities, values context, and recognizes the necessarily situated and incomplete nature of knowledge (Sipe & Constable, 1996). I understand knowledge as constructed, contextual, and co-created between researcher and participant (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). I believe individuals construct or make meaning of their experiences in different ways, such meanings are embedded in particular social, cultural, and temporal contexts, and meanings may change or evolve at different times and in different spaces (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011). Such constructions are always being interpreted for meaning, rather than fixing an unchanging and unchangeable reality. Any interpretation is 37 subject to surrounding discourses which delimit what is intelligible or allowable in any given culture. I further align myself with Kincheloe and McLaren’s (2002) definition of a critical constructivist researcher “who attempts to use her or his work as a form of social or cultural criticism and who accepts basic assumptions” (p. 299), including that all thought is mediated by power relations, knowledge cannot be isolated from values or ideology, language is not fixed and creates subjectivity, certain groups are privileged in any society, and research is implicated in the reproduction of systems of oppression. Denzin and Lincoln (2005) defined qualitative research as “a set of interpretive, material practices that make the world visible… they turn the world into a series of representations” (p. 3). I further understand qualitative research as a process of (co)constructing versions of truth, questioning how certain truths come to be neutralized as knowledge, and pushing thought in new directions (Britzman, 2000). This interpretivist, qualitative paradigm aligns with this study which focuses on the co-creation and cultural context of individual narratives, which are necessarily specific, embedded in discourses, context-situated, and open to interpretations (Thomas, 2012). Through narrative inquiry methodology, described in the next section, I participate in the co- creation of new stories to generate knowledge about the ways former students of lower- socioeconomic status remember and represent their education abroad experiences. Narrative Inquiry Methodology This study explored the ways individuals remember and represent their study abroad experiences after many years. I conducted this qualitative study utilizing narrative inquiry because the methodology closely aligns with the goals of this research project. Narrative inquiry is a type of qualitative inquiry grounded in retrospective meaning making (Chase, 2005) and 38 therefore is an ideal choice for a study which looks at how individuals have made meaning of an experience over many years. Polkinghorne (1995) defined narrative inquiry as “a subset of qualitative research designs in which stories are used to describe human action” (p. 5). Narrative inquiry is interested in the stories people tell and the ways those stories structure and make meaning of experiences. In its most basic form, narrative inquiry investigates what happened, the significance of what happened, and the ways in which it is shared (Thomas, 2012). Individual experiences, expressed and captured through narrative inquiry, offer insight into broader social phenomena (Chase, 1995/2003). Narrative is a central component of human experience across cultures and time periods (Thomas, 2012). Narratives are plotted accounts linking events that serve to interpret and explain the people, experiences, and ideas about which they are constructed (Kirkman et al., 2001). The stories people tell, those told for or about them, and those they encounter in the world influence how they understand themselves and their experiences (Caine et al., 2019). Narrating experiences to self and others allows humans to create structure and meaning in their lives. Autobiographical narratives emerge from memories, which consist of reconstructed fragments that must be integrated into a meaningful whole. Narratives provide an explanatory and evaluative framework for understanding how and why events unfold (Bruner, 1990). In addition to describing events, narratives provide insight into individuals’ thoughts, emotions, and interpretations (Chase, 2005). These constructions weave together people, places, and events and imbue them with varied intentions and motivations, using explanatory and evaluative frameworks to create stories that define an individual in time, space, and relation to others (Fivush, 2010). By interrogating the plots of individuals’ narratives, researchers can 39 attempt to understand the ways in which people make sense of their lives (Kirkman et al., 2001). This plotting can be subject to constant revision as new experiences suggest new meanings for previous events and new directions for future action (Kirkman et al., 2001). Therefore, narrative is an ideal method for exploring the ways individuals retrospectively make meaning of experiences such as study abroad throughout their lives. As Lewis and Hildebrandt (2019) noted, stories do more than contain insight and understanding; they are in themselves insight and understanding. Narrative inquiry goes beyond using narrative as a simple rhetorical structure and instead conducts an analytical examination of underlying insights and assumptions illustrated by the story (Webster & Mertova, 2007). Traditional approaches to social science focus on breaking phenomena down to gain a better understanding. A narrative approach counters the fragmentation of experiences and offers an alternative way of understanding lived experiences (Thomas, 2012). Narrative inquiry does not separate an individual’s personal experiences from the larger social, cultural, political, and institutional contexts in which they are situated (Caine et al., 2019). A narrative involves not just the individual lived experience, but an exploration of the broader social and cultural narratives in which and through which a person’s individual experience is shaped and enacted (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007). Any narrative, then, is partial, temporal, and situated in particular social, historical, and political contexts (Thomas, 2012). Narrative inquiry is a methodology well-suited for exploring participants’ education abroad experiences and the broader societal and cultural contexts in which they are situated. The following section will discuss the research design intended to elicit and analyze the necessary narratives to gain a deeper understanding of the topic. 40 Research Design As the goal of this study was to explore the ways individuals remember and represent their study abroad experiences, I elected to use qualitative research methods to collect data in the form of students’ narratives. This process began with creating a protocol, selecting participants, and conducting two narrative-inspired in-depth interviews with each participant. These interviews sought to investigate what the person experienced, how the person thinks and feels about the experience, and the significance or meaning it holds for the person (Mears, 2017). After these interviews, I proceeded into the data analysis phase. I will describe each of these steps in the following sections. Creating a Protocol In narrative inquiry, knowledge is co-created in a social space through storytelling. Narratives can be collected through a variety of data collection methods, including focus groups, observations, and interviews (Kim, 2016). After considering the goals of this study and the intended respondents, I decided to use narrative-inspired in-depth serial interviewing as a data collection method. I conducted two in-depth, one-on-one interviews, approximately one month apart, with each of the eight participants in this study. Serial interviewing is a method in which the researcher conducts multiple interviews with the same respondent. This can be an effective method when “the questions may concern topics that the interviewees themselves have never consciously considered or require exploring a large set of past experiences that must be retrieved from memory episode by episode” (Read, 2018, p. 2). As my study asks participants to reach back in their memory nearly two decades and discuss concepts such as capital that they may not have consciously thought about before, it made sense to create an opportunity for participants to rearticulate their experiences after a potential period 41 of greater reflection. In addition, multiple interviews allow space for the researcher and respondent to build familiarity and trust. Interviewing relies on the participant’s candor, or willingness to provide information, which can be expected to grow in successive interview sessions (Read, 2018). Initially, I considered a narrative interview structure modeled after one described by Jovchelovitch and Bauer (2000), who argued for a less-structured narrative interview protocol as a way of reducing the researcher’s influence. I developed a protocol which primarily asked interviewees one large question in each of the two interviews – to tell me the story of their education abroad experience and to tell me the story of their lives since. However, when I informally asked for feedback on this protocol from two friends who fit the study parameters, they both found the protocol uncomfortable as it did not match their understanding and experience of an interview. I found my interactions and enthusiasm were needed to carry the conversation along, make my participants feel comfortable, and encourage greater openness. Knowing the importance of putting interviewees at ease (Dilley, 2000), I decided to reformulate my approach. In the end, I developed protocols (Appendix A) for two interviews loosely based on Hollway and Jefferson’s (2005) free association narrative interview model, in which the first interview asked multiple questions guided by the study’s framework, designed to elicit participant narratives. The second interview allowed the researchers to further probe emergent themes, as well as allowed an interval for interviewees to reflect. My protocols focused on what I identified as various phases of life around the study abroad experience, namely the background, decision, experience, return, and post-graduate phases. Questions in bold typeface on the protocol documents were asked of all participants. For the background, decision, and experience 42 phases (Interview One), I asked one or two broad questions related to each phase. For the return and post-graduate phases (Interview Two), I asked three or four broad questions. In addition, for each phase I prepared prompts to help draw out more detailed information if participants did not independently bring up elements that I considered important or needed additional prompting to delve deeper into their memories or feel comfortable talking for more time. I only used these prompts if I felt it necessary based on the flow of the conversation; not all prompts were used with all participants. I approached both interviews as active and animated processes of co-meaning making (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011). The role of the active interviewer is not to uncover passively existing knowledge or coax respondents into giving preferred answers, but to converse with informants in ways that elicit responses that can create new knowledge (Holstein & Gubrium, 2011). As the conversation progressed, my role as the researcher was to suggest new lenses, help make connections between ideas, offer resources or perspectives that invite new interpretations, and encourage further development of interesting ideas. In narrative inquiry, the researcher needs to take care to actively listen and allow the participant time and space to tell the story. The researcher is not silenced in the co-creation of the narrative but must be cognizant of cultivating a relationship of mutual respect in which both voices are heard in a collaborative process of mutual storytelling (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). Selecting Participants For this study, I sought participants who grew up and attended a four-year college or university primarily in the United States and identified as having at least one marker of lower- socioeconomic status. Participants needed to have studied abroad outside the United States for at least eight weeks between 1999 and 2009. While much of the numerical growth in education 43 abroad during this time period can be attributed to the rise in short-term study abroad experiences (less than eight weeks), participation in semester and academic year-long study abroad programs remained proportionally steady, accounting for approximately one third of U.S. study abroad participation over the time frame under investigation (IIE, 2023b). Previous studies have shown greater benefits accrue to participants in longer-term programs. For example, Dwyer (2004) showed that the greatest educational and intercultural gains came from immersive, long-term study abroad programs in unfamiliar destinations. More recently, Waters (2023) explored existing evidence of the value of short-term mobility programs of less than two months and concluded that students partaking in longer-term study abroad experiences likely accrue greater benefits. Given these studies, I chose to interview participants whose study abroad experience was at least eight weeks long, whether it took place over a summer or traditional academic semester. To prepare for recruitment, I created a brief online questionnaire (Appendix B) for interested potential participants. This form asked them to share background information about themselves and details about the location and structure of their study abroad program. I also requested information intended to help approximate socioeconomic status prior to the study abroad experience, such as an individual’s status as a first-generation student (neither parent/guardian graduated from college) or whether an individual received a Pell Grant or other need-based financial aid for college. I purposefully chose not to foreground socioeconomic status at the time of study abroad in the recruitment phase of this project for two reasons. The first is related to the amount of time between individuals having the experience and participating in this project. Because this research focused on study abroad in college, all participants in this study had to have at least attended 44 college. Given that students who study abroad have higher degree completion rates than those who do not (Barclay Hamir, 2011; Bhatt et al., 2022), I assumed most participants would have graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Therefore, I anticipated respondents may have moved into middle-class professions over the last two decades and no longer strongly identify themselves as being from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds. I did not want to create confusion that might cause participants to self-select out if they did not currently identify with the term. Secondly, I did not want to influence respondents’ narratives about their participation in study abroad by priming them to think in terms of socioeconomic status. I wanted to allow them to maintain as much control over their narratives as possible. Therefore, I elected to use a range of indicators demonstrating low to lower-middle socioeconomic status to identify participants from such backgrounds. While receipt of a Pell Grant is a commonly used marker of lower-socioeconomic status in higher education and study abroad research (Delisle, 2017), I declined to make it my only indicator for practical reasons. Participants in my study graduated from college nearly two decades ago, and I did not want to rely on them remembering details of their financial aid package from so long ago. Instead, I offered a range of possible indicators, some of which could likely be verified by participants today if they were unsure (such as parents’ educational status) or might be more ingrained, long- term memories (receiving free/reduced lunch throughout childhood, for example). Ultimately, each participant selected for this study indicated at least one of the following indicators of lower- socioeconomic status before or at the time they went to college: • Was a first-generation college student (neither parent/guardian graduated from a four- year college or university) 45 • Received a Pell Grant, Basic Education Opportunity Grant (BEOG), or Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (SEOG) • Received other need-based financial aid or scholarships, such as federally-subsidized student loans, work-study funds, institutional grants, private scholarships, or similar aid • Received state benefits (e.g., SNAP, housing assistance, etc.) • Was eligible for free/reduced school lunch Within the subset of those who met the qualifications above, I did not limit this study to participants from a certain study abroad program, host country, college or university, or geographic area within the United States, a deliberate choice designed to allow for the broadest possible participation and richest data, but also to differentiate this study from previous research. While previous research (e.g., Dufour, 2020; Mistretta, 2008) examined long-term meaning making within the context of a specific education abroad program, this study aimed to more broadly explore the ways that having studied abroad, with all its possible variations in the individual experience, is remembered and represented by participants several years after the fact. I took a purposeful approach to recruitment, seeking participants with the desired characteristics who would provide rich and informative cases (Patton, 2014). As a scholar- practitioner of international education, I am a member of a listserv of international education professionals with over 9,000 subscribers. I sent a message to the listserv (Appendix C) asking colleagues to forward my recruitment email to former students or anyone else they might know who would fit the criteria. Aiming to recruit individuals in a life stage similar to my own, I also posted a call for participants on my personal Facebook and LinkedIn pages and asked my connections to share with their networks. These efforts resulted in broad dissemination of the call for participants. 46 Although I did not prevent them from filling out the initial questionnaire if they were so inclined, from the beginning I intended to avoid interviewing anyone with whom I had more than a passing personal acquaintance, such as friends or coworkers. I also intended to exclude people who participated in the same study abroad program I did, whether at the same time or a different time, as I felt my own memories or biases toward such a meaningful element of my own life might overshadow the narrative of the participant. In narrative inquiry, it is important for the researcher to listen and allow the participant time and space to tell their story (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). While I believe that as a researcher I cannot ever completely disassociate myself from my affiliations and biases (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2002), I wanted to lessen possible conflicts of interest by limiting my pre-existing connections to participants. After sifting through the initial responses to my call for participants, I decided to also exclude a third group: individuals currently working directly in the field of study abroad. I was not prepared for the number of individuals in this field who met the criteria and were interested in sharing their study abroad stories, which would be a fascinating topic for future work as I note in Chapter 6. I ultimately decided for this project I wanted to consider the narratives of individuals who were not currently professionally steeped in the study abroad discourse on a daily basis. I did have some respondents in my study who work in other realms of higher education that occasionally interface with study abroad but do not work in positions with direct responsibility or knowledge of study abroad on their campuses. Data Collection From the previously detailed recruitment methods, I was able to identify eight individuals from a variety of colleges and universities, majors, current and former geographic locations, career paths, and life experiences with whom I conducted two interviews each. I initially invited 47 11 people to be interviewed, but one did not respond at all, one did not respond to requests to schedule a second interview, and one did not ultimately meet the requirements for inclusion. All participants were given the option to select a pseudonym as part of the consent process. Four of the participants selected their own pseudonyms, and I selected the remaining four. Although my initial outreach sought individuals who studied abroad between 1999 and 2009, my participants ended up coming from the second half of the range, participating in programs between 2004 and 2008. Three participated in summer programs of 8-10 weeks, four participated in semester-long programs of 10-15 weeks, and one participated in an academic year program. Five participants studied in Europe, two studied in Latin America, and one participated in a program in Asia. Basic information about the participants’ education abroad experiences is summarized in Table 1. Table 1 Participants’ Study Abroad Program Information Participant Country of Study Length of Study Year of Study (Pseudonym) Amy Bryan Canelo Debby Drew Erica Mia Rose Abroad Italy Abroad Abroad Academic Year 2006-2007 Thailand and Laos Chile Switzerland Spain Ireland Costa Rica Spain Summer Semester Semester Summer Semester Semester Summer 2006 2005 2005 2007 2004 2005 2008 Interviews were conducted using the Zoom videoconferencing platform, as participants were dispersed around the world. I started every interview with my video camera on and invited 48 participants to use theirs or not, as they felt most comfortable. All participants were willing to use video unless logistics, such as talking while driving, or technology, such as Wi-Fi instability, precluded it. Our conversations ranged from approximately 45 to 120 minutes each, with the most common length being about 90 minutes. Each interview was recorded, and I took handwritten notes throughout to help me remember topics I wanted to circle back on in later conversation. I kept my notes to a minimum in order to be a fully present participant in the conversation. At the end of the second conversation, I reminded participants of my wish to thank them for their time and participation, as was noted in the consent form (Appendix D), by offering either a $50 gift card or making a charitable donation of the same amount in their honor to the Fund for Education Abroad, a non-profit organization providing study abroad scholarships for historically under-represented and low-income students. Ethically, most researchers agree financial incentives for participation are permissible when there is negligible risk of harm from participating in research (Zutlevics, 2016) and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Michigan State University (MSU) approved a $50 gift card incentive. However, I was not sure the amount of the gift card would incentivize working adults with college degrees, likely middle-class professionals, to spend three or four hours of their time on this project, and worried it would feel crass, transactional, or infantilizing to pay them a sum that could be considered paltry. By offering the donation option (also approved by MSU’s IRB), I hoped respondents would feel they were not just participating in a research study but helping current and future study abroad students in a tangible way. Though I did not ask for their reasoning, I believe this may have been true, as all participants opted for the donation. 49 As previously mentioned, in total I invited 11 individuals to be interviewed for this study, and eight of them completed the two-interview process. I sought participants who had a variety of life and study abroad experiences, looking for people with varying hometowns, family backgrounds, higher education institutions and institution types, majors, careers, and study abroad locations and program types. I asked about these topics on the initial intake questionnaire so I could prioritize outreach to individuals who would contribute to the variety of the participants. After completing two interviews with eight participants, I felt I had elicited rich, deep, and varied stories and began to see themes emerging. At that time, I decided to stop seeking additional participants. One of the challenges of qualitative research is that saturation can never be fully reached, as human lives are unique and organic; there will always be new things that unfold (Kim, 2016). However, O’Reilly and Parker (2013) offer a suggestion that qualitative researchers should be transparent about the limits of saturation. They further note that if saturation is unattainable, “it simply means that the phenomenon has not yet been fully explored rather than that the findings are invalid” (O’Reilly & Parker, 2013, p. 194). In this project, I decided to limit my participants to a number I felt allowed me to focus on the depth and complexity of the narratives and develop insights about the specific research questions. In no way do I pretend this study is a full or generalizable exploration of the experiences of all former study abroad students of lower-socioeconomic status. Participant Introductions In the following section, I provide brief prose introductions to each participant’s background, study abroad, and subsequent experiences. These summaries were written for this 50 research report, not as part of the data analysis process. More detailed narrative profiles that were used in data analysis will be presented later. Amy Amy is a White woman in her late 30s who has lived in Europe for over 15 years. She grew up on the west coast of the United States and attended a university in a major city as a Pell Grant recipient and first-generation student. She participated in short-term study abroad programs in high school and early college which prompted her to participate in a year-long program for her senior year, with a goal of staying abroad after graduation. Amy studied in Florence, Italy, where she finished the requirements for her degree in literature. Amy’s program was unique because students were responsible for finding their own housing. Amy found a room in an apartment full of Italian students, practicing her language skills and gaining confidence in navigating everyday life in Italy. After graduation, she achieved her goal of living abroad independently by enrolling in a training course for teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) and eventually getting a job in the field. She taught ESL for several years before returning to North America to earn a master’s degree. After she graduated into a dismal job market, Amy decided to return to Italy with her partner, where she continued working in education. Several years later, she embarked on a fellowship in the Middle East, after which she returned to Europe to begin a Ph.D. program. Amy envisions living her life in Europe for the foreseeable future; she does not expect to return to the United States to live full-time. Her entire adult life has been spent abroad, and she is most comfortable remaining so. 51 Bryan Bryan is a White man in his mid 30s who attended a land-grant university as a first- generation student. Raised in the Midwest, he was valedictorian of his high school and expected to become a doctor before discovering an interest in public policy. Early in his college career, Bryan came out as gay. He studied abroad on a two-month long faculty-led program to Thailand and Laos during the summer after his sophomore year. He took courses in political science and history, earning credit toward his major, and wrote his senior thesis on the political situation in Thailand. He enjoyed spending time abroad with the other U.S. students in his group, but the expatriate nature of the experience prompted him to want more engagement with local culture and people, leading him to the Peace Corps after graduation. Bryan spent three years in the Peace Corps before returning to the Midwest to work for a non-governmental organization. He earned a master’s degree in Public Health and led the global health arm of a local hospital system for several years before transitioning to a new role as a health care executive. Bryan recently got married and purchased a new home with his husband. Canelo Canelo is a White woman who studied abroad for a semester in Santiago, Chile as part of her undergraduate degree from a Catholic university in the Midwest. Her education was funded in part through a Pell Grant and financial aid. A finance major with an interest in Spanish, her career goal was to have a corner office in a big city. However, she underwent a transformation during her time in Chile, where she began to question the limited nature of her own understanding as she was challenged by human and emotional perspectives that contested her rational, economic worldview. 52 After graduation, Canelo decided to participate in a service program and taught high school math in underserved communities for several years before taking some time off to return to Chile. She intended only to stay a couple of months, but shortly after arriving she met the man who would become her husband and began building a life in Chile. When they had the opportunity to return to the United States due to her partner’s job, Canelo pivoted her career to the tech industry. After their careers went permanently remote following the COVID-19 pandemic, Canelo and her husband decided to move their growing family back to Chile, where they have been living full time for the last year. Debby Debby is a White woman in her late 30s living in the southeastern United States. Debby did not originally plan to study abroad as she needed to stay close to home to support her terminally ill single mother. After her mother passed away early in her college career, Debby received a life insurance payout that helped fund the rest of her education and decided to study abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. Debby was a student at a smaller private university but chose a study abroad program run by a larger public institution, which from her perspective made the coursework easier. She took an introductory French course and courses for her political science major, but her most memorable experiences while abroad were traveling to other European countries any chance she could. After being accepted to law school her senior year, Debby learned about the Fulbright program from a faculty member and decided to apply, ultimately being awarded an English teaching position in another European country. During her second sojourn abroad she continued to use her weekends and breaks from work to travel to several more countries. She was offered an extension on her teaching contract, but she turned it down, feeling it was time to return to the 53 United States to start her real life. She completed law school and has successfully practiced employment law for nearly 15 years. She continues to travel whenever she can and has a personal goal to leave the United States at least once each year. Drew Drew is a man in his 30s from the Midwest. He is now married with two kids and works as a high school principal. A first-generation college graduate, he studied social science education at a land-grant university before deciding to add a Spanish major to make himself more competitive in the job market. He was required to complete a language immersion experience and chose a two-month summer program in Santander, Spain because it offered him the most credits in the shortest amount of time. Drew helped support himself by working as a resident assistant in campus housing during the school year and did not want to give up his position to study abroad for a semester. In Santander, Drew took three Spanish classes and tried to maximize the experience for as long as he was there. His homestay was a shared apartment with two Spanish students, and by exploring his neighborhood he developed a friendship with an elderly couple who owned a local restaurant and took him under their wing. One of his most vivid memories is the once in a lifetime experience of running with the bulls in Pamplona. After graduating, Drew accepted a position as a world language teacher in a rural school district. He stayed there for over a decade, working his way up from classroom teacher to assistant principal after earning his master’s degree. More recently, he took a new position as principal in a nearby district. He also organized and chaperoned student trips to Europe and Central America. Now as an administrator and parent of young children, Drew no longer has the 54 flexibility to lead student travel himself, but he continues to support these programs and hopes to take his own children abroad in the future. Erica Erica is a White woman who grew up in the Pacific Northwest. As a first-generation student, Erica knew she wanted to live abroad from a young age, after visiting extended family in Europe with her parents. She spent a semester in Galway, Ireland, where she discovered an interest in modern Irish history, leading her to add a history major when she returned home. Erica loved the social experience of living with local Irish students, the freedom of a bigger town and university, and the feeling of independence she had while abroad. After graduating, Erica pursued a master’s degree in the United Kingdom, then returned to the United States and took a job in a large city on the East Coast. Concerned about a recession and potential layoffs at her place of employment, Erica began exploring options for further education and was offered funding to study for her PhD at an Irish university. After finishing her thesis, Erica decided not to seek a tenure-track academic position and instead was offered a job at a university back in her former city working with students applying for prestigious awards, which she has now been doing for a decade. A few years after resettling in the United States, Erica met and married an Irish man who had studied at the same university she did. She recently gave birth to their first child. Mia Mia is a Mexican American woman who grew up in a southwestern U.S. city. A first- generation American and first-generation student, she received a Pell Grant and other financial aid to attend a private liberal arts college in her hometown. Many students at her school studied abroad, and Mia decided to spend part of her senior year in Costa Rica, a place she had been 55 interested in since high school. In Costa Rica, she took sociology and business classes at a local university to fulfill major requirements. She enjoyed living with her host family and became close with her host mother, though the family was used to hosting more stereotypical upper- middle class White students. Because she spoke Spanish and presented as stereotypically Latina, Mia had expected she would blend in with local Costa Ricans and experienced some cognitive dissonance when she realized she did not. After graduation, Mia moved across the country for an AmeriCorps position before finding a passion for research. She earned a PhD at a prestigious New England university and conducted research in non-profit organizations. Eventually, Mia accepted a tenure-track position in her home city, where she now lives with her husband and child. Rose Rose is a White woman from the Midwest. She attended a top public research university, receiving in-state tuition and financial aid, and majored in Spanish and Education. Study abroad was an integral part of her Spanish major, but she was concerned about costs and about being away from home for too long, so she chose to do an eight-week summer program in Salamanca. The flight to Spain was her first time leaving the United States. Rose’s coursework focused on Spanish language, history, and culture. She lived in a high-rise condo with a single host mother, with whom she has kept in touch, and a rotation of other international students. Rose spent most of her time outside of class exploring the city with fellow students from her program, many of whom remained her friends when they returned home. She continued in her intended career path and taught high school for several years before pivoting to a graduate program in college student affairs. She now works as an academic advisor in a local community college near her home where she lives with her partner. 56 Data Analysis After my first conversation with each participant, I listened to the recording and took notes to prepare for the next conversation. After both conversations were recorded but before analysis began, each interview was transcribed and sent to participants for review by email (Appendix E). The email accompanying the transcripts offered participants the chance to review them for general accuracy and reply with anything they wanted to amend or redact. I also informed them the transcripts were not verbatim and had been cleaned up to eliminate, as much as practical, filler words, false starts, and other verbal excess from both parties. Following Carlson’s (2010) suggestions for avoiding traps in member checking, I reminded the participants I was interested in their stories as they had told them, and their contribution and unique voice was more important to the project than their grammatical accuracy or verbal fluency. Only one participant responded to verify how identifying information would be protected and request certain information be redacted for the privacy of another person. Additional participants either did not respond or responded with brief messages of thanks or encouragement, but no alterations to their transcripts. The process of narrative analysis begins with the acts of telling and listening in which the researcher and participant make meaning together (Riessman, 1993). With permission from respondents, I recorded and had our conversations transcribed for analysis. Transcription is the process of transforming spoken words into written text. I elected to have the recorded conversations professionally transcribed. After receiving the transcripts, I listened to each recording at least twice to ensure I agreed with the professional transcription and make notes regarding tone, content, and process. I engaged with the spoken narratives and their written representations both separately and together to develop a deep familiarity with both. 57 From the transcripts and recordings, I developed lengthy narrative portraits of each participant, re-storying our conversations into narratives rich in detail and faithful to the meandering nature of the interpersonal interactions that created them, illustrating their complexity and ambiguities (Rodriguez-Dorans & Jacobs, 2020). Narrative analysis differs from many traditional forms of analysis because it does not seek to break participant narratives into smaller pieces, but to treat the full story as an individual piece of data (Thomas, 2012). Narratives are not always or often presented in discrete blocks joined by clear beginnings and endings. In my initial narrative portrait writing, I sought to follow the narrative through-line of each participant to assemble a coherent narrative that starts from the inside out, privileging the teller’s experience even as interpretive choices were inevitable (Riessman, 1993). Following this first attempt, I distilled these lengthy portraits into more streamlined narrative profiles (Appendix F) that sought to capture the narrative arc of each participant’s life and study abroad experiences in still detail-rich ways. This dual process of restorying rested on becoming familiar with the transcripts, analyzing the data to understand the lived experiences, and retelling the story multiple times and in multiple ways (Ollerenshaw & Creswell, 2002). With the narrative profiles, I created storied narratives of experience (Squire, 2013) focused on how the participant experienced study abroad from initial conceptualization through the present, rather than prioritizing an event-centric chronology of the activity (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). This experience-centered approach assumes that narratives are a means of human sensemaking, re-presenting and reconstituting it as well as expressing it in a way that is sequential, meaningful, and indicative of a transformation or change (Squire, 2013). After completing the narrative profiles, I conducted a final distillation in which I challenged myself to identify a single word to summarize the story the individual told about him 58 or herself (Table 2), a technique sometimes used in classrooms to help the analyst isolate the critical attributes of the content (Wormeli & Stafford, 2018). I adapted this activity as a way of identifying and naming the narrative through-lines in each student’s story. Table 2 One Word Summary of Participants’ Narratives Pseudonym One Word Summary Amy Bryan Canelo Debby Drew Erica Mia Rose The Seeker The Striver The Go-Getter The Independent The Leader The Enthusiast The Thinker The Educator As I wrote each round of narrative portraits, profiles, and summaries and moved into coding the transcripts I kept analytic memos, records of my thoughts, inspirations, questions, ideas, and challenges as I worked through the data. Saldaña (2021) suggested writing analytic memos should be a concurrent strategy during the analysis phase of a project to document the development of the analysis and the researcher’s evolving understanding of the data. I kept these memos in a handwritten notebook in a locked desk drawer in my home office. Once I felt I had a strong grasp on each participant’s narrative, I returned to the initial data, the transcripts of our conversations. I uploaded the transcripts to Dedoose, a computer- assisted qualitative data analysis software. I conducted a first round of inductive coding using an eclectic method (Saldaña, 2021) which combined in vivo codes, drawn directly from participants’ speech (what they were saying) and process codes (what they were doing or saying 59 they had done). In addition, I coded for descriptors related to participants’ backgrounds or contexts to help identify patterns related to, for example, family situations or the type of college or university attended. I purposefully chose to code in large blocks of text (as a lumper, not a splitter, to use Saldaña’s (2021) informal terms), conscious of Thomas’s (2012) reminder that narrative analysis should not seek to break down a narrative into smaller parts but attend to the story as a whole. After initially coding all 16 transcripts, I took time to review my coding charts and wrote several analytic memos in which I considered different ways of categorizing the codes and associated data. I then conducted a second round of focused coding using process codes I had identified in the first round. Once I had coded all transcripts a second time, I began to reorganize and categorize the process codes looking for emergent themes in how the individuals spoke about their education abroad experiences. With further analytic memo writing, I developed the three themes, Investing, Exploring, and Becoming, which will be discussed in Chapter 4. After these two rounds of iterative thematic coding, I conducted a final round of analysis using eclectic coding to identify ways the emerging themes related to the two existing cultural narratives of education abroad, the Grand Tour and the study abroad employability narrative. In this process I used Dedoose to identify data coded with each of the three themes and then considered how the data reflected, nuanced, or challenged the existing narratives. This process was more deductive because I already had ideas about possible relationships between participant experiences and the cultural narratives. However, even as I was using a priori categories, I remained open to the possibility of new relationships emerging from the data. Throughout the analytical process, I embraced “narrative as both the method and the phenomena of study” (Pinnegar & Daynes, 2007, p. 4). As a narrative scholar, I attend 60 analytically to the ways narratives are assembled and shared, asking with Riessman and Speedy (2007) “For whom was this story constructed, how was it made and for what purpose? What cultural discourses does it draw on–take for granted? What does it accomplish?” (pp. 428–429). Such analysis requires deliberate methods and attention to subtlety and nuance in the narratives. As a method, narrative analysis creates space for systematic exploration of personal experiences and meanings, and the ways events have been constructed by active subjects both in their lived experiences and the (re)telling of them. Validity and Trustworthiness The intention of this study is not to draw generalizable conclusions, though as a methodology narrative research seeks to learn about the general from the particular. Narratives encapsulate a limited number of experiences which are used to approximate a coherent story and cannot be scaled up to encompass large numbers of nameless or faceless participants (Riessman, 1993). Narratives are necessarily agentive, demonstrating the ways individuals try to navigate their experiences, emotions, and desires within the societal structures and unexpected events of their lives (McAlpine, 2016). As a narrative researcher, I am mindful that representations through narrative are not complete but contextual and situated. Traditional conceptualizations of validity draw on realist assumptions that are largely irrelevant to narrative inquiry. This study can never claim to address the experiences and narratives of all students of lower-socioeconomic status who participate in study abroad, or to be the only correct interpretation of the narratives presented here. The narrative researcher’s claim does not have to assert the offered interpretation is the only possible one but must convincingly argue it is a viable one grounded in the data (Polkinghorne, 2007). Therefore, I treat narrative research as an invitation to participate, wherein my ideas are candidates to inform future 61 researchers’ thinking about the nature and meaning of the phenomenon (Peshkin, 1985, as cited in Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). Trustworthiness of interpretations is a critical issue for a narrative researcher. My aim in addressing validity was to follow Riessman’s (1993) framework, attending to persuasiveness, correspondence, coherence, and transparency. I acknowledge my interpretation of the stories in this study is just one of many possible interpretations. However, I seek to make this interpretation reasonable and convincing by supporting theoretical claims with evidence directly from the narratives (Polkinghorne, 2007). To increase correspondence in this study, I shared interview transcripts with the participants and invited them to read and reflect on our entire conversation (not just their own words) and offer feedback, amendments, or additional insights. I attended to coherence on three levels, global, local, and thermal, as identified by Agar and Hobbs (1982). Global coherence pays attention to the cultural and social situatedness of the narrative, while local coherence is found within the narrative itself. Thermal coherence emerges as themes are repeatedly or emphatically identified within and across the data. Through my narrative analysis, in both my profile writing and coding processes, as well as my presentation of the findings throughout this document, I strove to demonstrate the interpretations made in this study are grounded in the data and make sense across the different contexts. Finally, I have attempted to be as transparent as possible about the research process, giving a thorough account of procedures and leaving an audit trail that others can follow for replicability or to make their own evaluation of the trustworthiness of this work (Mears, 2017). My intention in writing is always to use rhetorical and linguistic devices that persuasively make a reasoned and substantiated argument, drawing on evidence and presented in ways that are clear, concise, and comprehensible. As a critical constructivist researcher, I take seriously the 62 responsibility of trustworthiness as I engage with my participants and readers in the process of co-constructing knowledge for a better world. Chapter Summary In the preceding chapter, I gave an overview of my worldview, methodology, and research design for this study. I embrace a critical constructivist worldview which values context and recognizes the incomplete and situated nature of knowledge. I adopt a subjectivist epistemology that understands myself and the research participants as co-creators of knowledge. I next explained my narrative inquiry methodology, which privileges the stories people tell and the ways those stories structure and make meaning of experiences. I articulated my understanding that any narrative is partial, temporal, and situated in a particular social, historical, and political context. I then shifted into a discussion of the research design, explaining my process of creating a protocol, recruiting and selecting participants, and collecting data, as well as provided introductions to each participant. After explicating my data analysis process, I addressed concerns about validity within qualitative and narrative research and outlined methods to increase the trustworthiness of my data and interpretations. In the next chapter, I will turn to the findings of this study. 63 CHAPTER 4: THEMES IN PARTICIPANT NARRATIVES OF STUDY ABROAD As described in the previous chapter, I analyzed interviews with my eight participants in order to answer the research questions “How do individuals of lower-socioeconomic status remember (in the past) and represent (currently) their education abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed?” and “How do those representations relate to existing cultural narratives of study abroad?” In this chapter, I answer the first research question by presenting three primary themes around which these individuals centered their stories of education abroad: Investing, Exploring, and Becoming. As I explore each of these themes, I aim to create a complex portrait of how these participants represent their study abroad experiences after many years by foregrounding their words and stories in ways that honors their individual voices. Investing Participants in my study used the capitalistic language of investment to narrate their education abroad experiences. They used terminology and metaphors invoking the field of economics to justify their participation and its value and spoke of both the transformation of themselves and the transformation of their cultural and material capital into something else in pursuit of their goals. They represented their experience as a status seeking endeavor, designed to help them fit in or stand out, depending on the field (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). They deployed their resources to help them accomplish what they set out to do, which was, very broadly, to have a study abroad experience in the moment. By and large, despite their investment, they did not articulate specific future goals toward which they were working. Finally, they positioned themselves or reflected on how others positioned them as consumers. Overall, they treated the 64 investment in study abroad as an imperative, something they felt compelled to do in order to be a certain type of person. Seeking Status Students spoke about the status studying abroad afforded them in two primary ways. The first was similar to confirming their membership in a particular club. Several students discussed how study abroad was part of their campus culture, something everyone did and they felt they needed to do to belong or have the real university experience. While studying abroad was about fitting in with their collegiate peers, it was also about standing out in other fields. Some students believed studying abroad was something they needed to do as leaders or representatives of their home communities, shouldering the weight of expectations of success. Fitting In Students in this study had a variety of majors and career goals, and came from across the spectrum of modest means, including first-generation students whose parents did not attend college, Pell Grant recipients, and recipients of other financial aid or state benefits. In general, they were not the typical student who would attend a four-year college or university (Kena et al., 2015) or participate in study abroad (Simon & Ainsworth, 2012). They attended a variety of higher education institution types from around the United States, ranging from small liberal arts colleges to large state universities, public and private, religiously affiliated and secular. Despite the differences in their colleges, many participants commented on a culture of study abroad that made it seem like something they needed to do to fit in. Bryan attended a large public land-grant university in the Midwest, which prided itself on having a robust and accessible study abroad program. Though he initially was not terribly interested, as he became more enmeshed in campus culture he realized study abroad was part of 65 the university’s identity, and he wanted to claim his place as a member. Regarding his decision to study abroad, Bryan reflected, At that point, I didn’t even know what I wanted to do as a career. I was still discerning all that, and I just thought, “This is something that seems really amazing, and this is, I think, what you should do during college.” Plus, [Land-Grant University] talked so much about study abroad… They would talk about having one of the largest study abroad programs in the country. And so that was a point of pride, and I’m sure at some level I equated that with the unique college experience, like this is something students do, this is something [Granters] do, I should do this. Bryan’s final sentence above captures the evolution of how what was once was a limited opportunity for a few became a requirement for full membership in the culture, as study abroad became part of the identity of students at his institution. Courtois (2020) identified a mobility imperative wherein students must constantly do more to achieve greater distinction and set themselves apart from their peers. Bryan, as a first- generation student, and others in this study who made similar comments, felt an imperative to study abroad not to achieve distinction among their peers, or even from a sense of competition or keeping up with their peers, but rather from a desire to be a part of something and to have an experience that others were having. They did not see their participation as part of a rat race to get ahead, but a demonstration of their full embrace of what it meant to be a student at their universities. Mia did not know how rare studying abroad was until she became an assistant professor herself many years later and learned some of the statistics of education abroad participation. When asked how she first learned about study abroad, Mia replied, 66 I honestly do not remember. The best I could think of is that it was just a common thing on campus. I don’t want to say everybody studied abroad, but so many people studied abroad that it was just something you do, like you join a club or something. As an undergraduate at a selective liberal arts college, Mia recognized studying abroad as part of the culture. Debby’s medium-sized university, across the country from Mia’s, had a similar culture. Debby recalled, At [Medium-sized University], the question is not, “Are you doing a semester abroad?" It’s "When are you going, and where are you going? Are you doing a [M-SU] program, or are you doing a different program?” ... My freshman year, in the fall, everyone said, “Oh, wait until so-and-so gets back, and wait until this. Wait until they come back.” Then you meet all these juniors who just came back from all these fabulous places, telling all these stories. People would wear their shirts around campus from wherever they had studied abroad or whatever the European city soccer team was where they were. Part of it was a status-type thing, and part of it was this was just something that everyone did. Despite this cultural context, Debby initially wrote off the experience because of her mother’s health. A year after her mother’s death in the fall of her sophomore year, Debby felt ready for a change and excited to be able to do something everyone else was doing. When she returned from studying abroad, she took her turn being the junior who just got back from a far-flung locale and wanted to showcase it, affixing a sticker of the Swiss flag to the back of her vehicle. In Rose’s case, the culture of her major made study abroad seem accessible and commonplace. She attended a well-regarded public university in the Midwest with a robust but not pervasive culture of study abroad. However, in the spaces Rose inhabited as a Spanish and 67 education major, study abroad was regularly discussed as an important opportunity to become a better Spanish speaker, learner, and educator. She reflected, The idea of studying abroad was reinforced pretty consistently because I was in Spanish classes from my very first semester of college…A typical first semester student might not be exposed to that as much, but I was. The more that I engaged in the cultural experience on campus, the more I was just like, “I have to go abroad.” [Midwest University] is an incredibly diverse campus, so it just seemed so accessible. It was pretty easy to get information… I was exposed to it through my Spanish classes and instructors, and it was constantly talked about.” Rose was interested in other cultures and languages since she was a child, but she could not imagine how she could have access to them. Even when she began studying Spanish in high school or saw her friends participate in exchanges with her hometown’s Sister City in Japan, she could not imagine an international learning opportunity accessible to her until she was steeped in a culture where it was presented as the norm, and where a clear pathway was laid out through the support of her instructors and the example of fellow students who had gone before. An on-campus culture of studying abroad made it seem like an easy and obvious choice for these students. Studying abroad was a way of attaining and demonstrating full membership in the educational community. Though these students were not the typical study abroad student, and therefore could be seen as encroaching on middle-class distinction practices (Holdsworth, 2017; Lehmann, 2012), the students themselves did not indicate any evidence that their participation was unwelcome or unwanted by their universities or other, more typical, study abroad students. They took at face value the campus narrative that education abroad was for everyone and believed it helped them fit in with their peers. In the next section, I discuss how these students 68 from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds anticipated and recognized distinction through studying abroad in relation to their home communities. Standing Out Though they saw study abroad as a way to fit in on campus, some of the students also sought distinction through studying abroad, whether by their choice of location or their choice to participate at all. Bryan commented on both when he discussed achieving distinction in his home community, I was enormously aware of the privilege I had by going to college, and because I’d been the valedictorian, I felt like people had a lot of expectations on me, because of the things that I had done or accomplished in high school, and so I felt very much pressure like I needed to live up to that…And so I remember initially when I got back from study abroad, being very proud of myself, like this is another accomplishment or achievement. And I remember my parents talking to people like, “I don’t know where he gets it. We would never want to go to Thailand.” So just like, “See, I’m doing this differentiated thing.” That was very important early on. Munt (1994) wrote about the increasing popularity of tourism to developing nations, which he argued were imagined and experienced as locations where young tourists believe they can perform and narrate individual strengths, adaptability, worldliness, and achievement in support of a middle-class identity. Though Munt’s (1994) focus was on tourists, not educational travelers, this mindset can be seen reflected in Bryan’s narrative. Bryan identified himself as coming from a lower middle-class, Rust Belt background. His family rarely traveled. He came from a background where the idea of international travel would more likely conjure images of quick trips to nearby Canada or a week in the Caribbean rather 69 than two months in Thailand. He felt the weight of expectations as a model of a successful student from his background. Though just going to college was distinctive, given his background as a first-generation student, he did not want to just skate through. Bryan felt pressure to achieve above and beyond by making the most of the opportunity, taking advantage of all the experiences college could offer and doing what, as he said earlier, “you should do during college.” Fitting in at college was a way of achieving distinction at home. Similarly, Canelo was attracted to a semester in Chile by the way it was described in a recruitment presentation in her Spanish class. She said, [Spain] sounded really fun, but when they talked about Chile, there was just a different vibe. Like a wild, rustic... There’s no English at all. It’s at the end of the world. They just came out of a dictatorship. And I thought that sounded really interesting. More risky. So I said, “I’m going there.” She applied and was accepted to the program, then presented the idea to her parents. Describing their reaction, she said, [I] told my parents I was going, and they were like, “What? Where are you going? Do they have electricity there? Are there horses? Are there cars? What is this place?” They had never been to South America and it sounded like drug cartels to them, not a modern country. Canelo’s father worked in the aviation industry, so her family had traveled during her childhood, mostly around the United States but also to Canada and the Bahamas. Her father had traveled to Central America for work a few times, but Chile was both physically and culturally much further from home. 70 Both Bryan and Canelo’s location choices and perception of their authenticity align with Prazeres’s (2019) finding that students who studied abroad in the Global South felt their experience provided them with a greater measure of distinction than their peers who traveled to countries in the Global North. Given the students in my study are from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, travel to nearly any other country, including the common European study abroad destinations, would have afforded a measure of distinction in their home communities. However, because they chose less-visited destinations in the Global South, Bryan and Canelo amplified the value of the capital they were building (Prazeres, 2019). While Bryan and Canelo felt the value of distinction from the choices they made, Drew expressed regret that his choice did not help him achieve as much distinction as he now wishes, though he made what felt like the best choice at the time. He said, I think there’s capital, so to speak, by the length of your study abroad. And I’ve always been proud of the fact that I studied abroad, but I’m not super proud of the fact that it was two months, when you have people that went for a year. Now, it was such a rich experience. But I don’t know how I relay that to other people. If you say you live somewhere for two months, can you justifiably say, “I lived in Spain?” … So I guess I don’t know if it’s even a regret really, that I wish it was longer. But I wish I could say it was a longer experience. Though Drew wishes to have had a longer experience abroad now, he made his choice very practically based on his needs at the time. Drew helped fund his education by working as a resident assistant, which came with free campus housing during the fall and spring semesters, an income he could not forgo to spend a longer time abroad. Drew’s summer program in Santander, Spain spanned two months, nearly his whole summer since he was required to return to campus 71 early for his work commitments. He invested the most time he had available, but rarely is that context part of the conversations he has about study abroad. In feeling regret, Drew is operating from a standpoint that lengthy education abroad options are more desirable and easily accessible to everyone, a perspective more akin to one found at his public, land-grant university than in the working-class environment he grew up in or the rural community in which he spent most of his career. In those communities, a two-month stay abroad would likely be an unusual or distinctive life experience. The fact Drew no longer finds it distinctive (enough) is evidence of the evolution of his habitus from his working-class youth to his middle-class adulthood, beginning with his undergraduate years and subsequent graduate work at a university and continuing in his solidly middle-class profession as a high school teacher and administrator. More tellingly, the fact he wishes he could say it was a longer experience reflects the way capital is displayed through narrative and representation (Takacs, 2020). While he would have enjoyed having a longer study abroad experience, he does not regret the timeline or anything he did so much as he would like to reap greater distinction from it. Deploying Resources It was not uncommon for students to frame their study abroad participation as an imperative, using phrases like “I have to go abroad” (Rose) or “It seemed like something I should do” (Bryan). While this message was often received from the culture of their universities, some students felt an internal motivation prior to college, such as Erica, who knew she wanted to study abroad from her early teen years after a taking a family trip to visit relatives in Europe, or Amy, whose interest in living abroad long-term was sparked by a short class trip in high school. The imperative did not come explicitly from their families or home communities. 72 None of the individuals in my study had parents, siblings, or other close family or friends from home who had studied abroad before them. Other than Debby, whose mother had first learned about study abroad during a parent session at a prospective student visit and later suggested to Debby that it sounded like a fun opportunity, students’ family members and home communities did not actively encourage study abroad until the students introduced the idea. Once they raised the topic, students received varying levels of support for their investment in the opportunity. As an only child of parents who had not finished college, Drew felt he needed to make the most of his college experience on his family’s limited budget. He recalled his reaction when his first-year roommate participated in a study abroad program, He came back with this experience and I just remember thinking, “Wow.” I was very conscientious about my bills. My parents saved for me for college, but there was a ceiling to what they could provide, and I was going to need to fill in that gap. So the idea of studying abroad was like, “There’s no way. Hey, that’s good for him. It’s nice that his family has the money to be able to do that.” Later, after Drew began studying social science education and added an additional Spanish major, he realized study abroad was one of the most economical ways of fulfilling his experiential learning requirement, in terms of money and time to degree. He marshaled those economic arguments to present the idea to his parents. He said, To be honest, that was kind of a selling point to my family. “Look, I have to do this for my program now, so this is the fastest way to do it… I can take three classes while I’m over there. It’s only two months. It’s not like I’m going to be gone for an entire semester.” 73 Drew was heavily involved on campus as a student government leader and resident assistant, which helped pay for his housing and meals. Because his parents had actively saved throughout his life to help fund his education, he felt he needed to justify his participation in study abroad as a practical investment of money and time. Even after deciding he wanted to study abroad, Bryan struggled with the cost. He had to take out an extra student loan to cover the additional fees. It was his mother who unexpectedly gave him the push he needed. He recalled, I remember being a little bit put off by the price. In retrospect, I think, “Oh, that wasn’t expensive,” but back then it was. I didn’t have a conception of it. I think my mom said something like, “That’s such a small amount of student loans to take out. If you’re already taking out loans, don’t worry about the money. The money will pay for itself one day.” And I thought, “You know what? That’s a good idea. I’m investing in future me.” And I could square it that way. In our second interview, Bryan further discussed his investment in study abroad in the big picture of his education, in the context of his recent application for student loan forgiveness. He reflected, In retrospect, I think I took $2,500 out in loans for study abroad. And it’s so funny to me how small that is in comparison to the total amount of aid and scholarships and tuition and stuff that I paid for all of the education that I have to date. And it’s like, oh my God, that was the best bang for its buck. There was not a more important dollar I’ve spent than those couple thousand dollars that I took out for that. So thank God I didn’t let the fear or worry about student loan debt, which I was conscious of back then, keep me from doing that. 74 The evolution of Bryan’s relationship with the extra cost of study abroad demonstrates an emerging middle-class habitus during his college years and beyond. As a student from a modest background, he struggled to make the initial investment, even though he had come to believe over the course of his time at college that study abroad was an important opportunity. Fifteen years later, as an established professional with a successful career in healthcare administration, he was able to look at the investment of economic capital with a different perspective on its value. Amy talked less about the investment of money in her study abroad experience than about how she was investing her time and energy to create a different future for herself. She was not especially attached to her university, and she identified no culture of study abroad within it, but she had a dream of someday living abroad as an independent adult. She felt adrift after returning from her earlier, shorter study abroad program and decided to embark on a purposeful final study abroad endeavor in which she would position herself to remain abroad at the end of the program. She studied in Florence, Italy for the final year of her undergraduate degree, arranging to complete her final degree requirements through the study abroad program. She threw herself into language learning and cultural integration, ultimately landing a position as an English as a Second Language teacher after graduation that allowed her to remain in Italy for several more years. In our conversation, she talked somewhat ruefully about the seriousness with which she approached her final study abroad experience, putting so much pressure on herself to stay in Italy without even really knowing if she liked it yet. She remarked, I wish that I would have lived it in a lighter way. I was putting so much pressure on myself to go down a certain path, and so I think it would have been fun to have more fun. But I still had fun. It was great. 75 Amy’s comments reflect the reality that building a life in a new culture can be taxing. In her case, it was not just an investment of money followed by a fun and carefree year, at the end of which she would go home to fit in with her middle-class classmates. She took her experience, and her goal, so seriously that she feels like she missed out on some of the fun a study abroad experience is expected to entail. However, she seems reluctant to say so because it would admit to having wasted some part of the opportunity. Amy’s reiteration that she did still have fun, that it was great, sounds like she is in some way trying to convince herself, saying what she thinks she is supposed to say and simplifying her experience even as she has identified a meaningful regret (Kortegast & Boisfontaine, 2015). Multiple students, particularly those who studied abroad for a semester, discussed how their education abroad programs cost less money than spending comparable time on campus. Mia, for example, remembered how nearly all her financial aid and scholarships were able to apply to her semester in Costa Rica, and the amount was enough to cover even the cost of her flight, though she did have to forgo a small, state-specific scholarship for the semester. Both Canelo and Debby also mentioned the cost was less than what they would have paid for a semester on their home campuses. For Debby, the lower cost was part of the argument she put forward to her family to support her experience. After her mother’s death, Debby received a life insurance payout that helped fund the rest of her education, which was held in a trust controlled by her uncle. She explained to him the credits she would earn, how she would have support from the university, and that it was cheaper than a semester on campus. While she still does not think he necessarily understood why she wanted to study abroad, he would not have let her write the check if he was not generally supportive. 76 Every student I interviewed discussed their time abroad as an investment in their academics, despite variations in language and expression. They all indicated it was important to them to earn credits they needed to complete their graduation requirements in a timely manner. Debby, for example, talked about how she had to get special permission and ask for additional writing assignments to get her study abroad courses approved to count toward her major. Amy and Mia, who both studied abroad in their senior year, recalled carefully planning to be sure all their degree requirements could be completed on time. Drew was drawn to the opportunity to complete multiple required courses in one summer, while Bryan and Rose were both attracted by the chance to take courses sponsored by their home institutions that would seamlessly fulfill requirements without needing to transfer credits. Rose, who attended an eight-week summer program, summed up her thought process by saying, At the time, I was not comfortable doing a full semester because I had this idea in my head that it would put me behind. I thought, “Oh my gosh, if I take a whole semester off, then it’s going to push me back and delay my graduation, and I don’t want to do that, and so if I’m going to do it, it’s going to have to be in the summer.” Those are just assumptions that were made that were probably false...And in hindsight, once you’re there, I thought, “I wish I would’ve done a whole semester or a year.” In Rose’s case, she recognized she had made assumptions about how studying abroad for a semester would affect her academic progress. In her career now as an academic advisor for college students, she actively works to help students make informed decisions about investing time and money into study abroad and how they can prioritize academic progress. 77 Others reiterated this line of thinking when asked what they might say to someone thinking about studying abroad now. Debby, for example, reflected, I think it was a valuable part of my college experience and helped shape who I am. They need to make sure that it doesn’t affect their ability to graduate on time. I would not sacrifice graduating on time to go abroad. If that’s the case, I would do it in the summer. But I think a semester is better. Debby believed a semester abroad, like she had done, would help students develop greater independence and have a deeper cultural experience. However, such goals must be secondary to academic progress, reflecting a belief that study abroad can be a time of fun and personal growth, but it first and foremost must be a further investment in degree achievement. The participants in this study were not students who regularly traveled or had a habitus that valued study abroad for personal development. They were interested in and open to personal development, but the experience had to provide practical benefits in order to be worthwhile, the least of which had to be it did not put them behind in their timeline to graduation, adding considerable cost to their and their families’ investments in their education. While the actual cost of the study abroad may have comprised, as Bryan mentioned, a small amount of student loans, the addition of a semester or longer to complete their degree, because of a frivolous semester abroad, would have required an untenable amount of additional resources. Such a sizeable investment was not one these students were able or willing to make. Being Consumers Many of the stories I heard during these interviews demonstrated that students positioned themselves or were positioned by others as consumers of various aspects of their study abroad experiences. Homestays and housing were one area where this perception was prevalent. Several 78 students from my study lived with local individuals or families, often women with or without partners and children also living with them. This is a common study abroad practice often intended to increase exposure to language and culture and better integrate students into the daily life of their host community, though its efficacy in such regards has been questioned (Vande Berg et al., 2009). Canelo, Drew, Mia, and Rose all lived with hosts in Spanish-speaking countries during their time abroad. Canelo shared a story that played a significant role in her memories of her study abroad experience in Chile. On her arrival, she was placed in a homestay with a divorced woman and her two daughters, one of whom was about Canelo’s age. Canelo and the daughter became good friends, and Canelo enjoyed living with them, except for one thing. The family smoked cigarettes throughout the apartment, and Canelo found this unbearable. She had requested a non-smoking family on her initial housing form, so she assumed the family had lied about smoking in the house in order to have a student placed with them. Hosts were paid a significant sum of money as payment for housing students, and Canelo’s family had put the extra income toward purchasing a vehicle. Canelo was uncomfortable addressing the situation directly and did not want to ask the family to change their lifestyle because of her. Instead, she talked to her program leaders and asked to be moved to another home. The program complied, and she moved in with an older woman who did not smoke. However, Canelo acknowledged it was less fun living there, and shortly after she moved her original hosts reached out to ask why she left. She explained she did not want to ask them to change their habits, but she could not live in the smoke-filled environment. Somewhat sheepishly, she admitted she did not have the Spanish language skills or cultural knowledge to express her needs so, in her words, she “just chickened out and asked to 79 move houses.” The family begged her to come back and agreed to smoke only on the balcony, so she packed up all her things for the second time in a week and moved back in with her original hosts, who kept their word and smoked outside for the rest of the semester. Canelo knew the family was getting paid to host her, though she initially did not know the scale of the payment. Though she was uncomfortable addressing it directly, she also was unwilling to pay to live in an environment she considered unhealthy and chose to deal with it in an indirect manner. However, once the truth emerged and the family offered to change their habits to accommodate her needs, she happily went back to living with them because she found it more fun. While Canelo’s distaste for smoking is sympathetic given the U.S. cultural context she was coming from and the serious health risks of secondhand smoke, and in her memory the family did not show any resentment (she and her host sister are still friends today, and the host sister even attended Canelo’s wedding), the story still places her, the study abroad student with the money, in a position of power over the local host family. She is the consumer, and they are the service providers who adapt to her needs. Drew was another student who was reminded of his status as a customer in his homestay in Spain. After his program orientation in Santander, Drew met the woman who owned the apartment where he would be living, his ostensible host mother. She walked him back to the apartment that first day, reminding him repeatedly to remember the route and asking him several times what he liked to eat for breakfast. Jet-lagged, he did not quite understand what was happening. They arrived at the apartment, where the host mother showed him his room, gave him a key, and turned to leave, at which point he realized she did not live there. When he asked, she told him she lived several towns over and he would be sharing the apartment with a couple of local students she also rented to. She left, Drew took a nap, and when he awoke there were six 80 boxes of Kellogg’s Special K cereal on the kitchen table, fulfilling her obligation to provide breakfast for the duration of his homestay. Drew never saw the owner again, and their only other interaction was the day before he left, when she called him demanding payment for his stay. He let her know the program would pay her, and he was not directly responsible. She argued with him before unhappily hanging up. That was the last he heard from her. Drew told this story with good cheer, though he acknowledged it was a strange experience at the time. When he realized his homestay was not like the other students’, he reported it to his university. They were eager to move him, but it was a nice apartment in a convenient location and his roommates were pleasant, so he asked to stay. He ended up appreciating the independence of not living with a family, and his apartment became a hangout spot for his classmates. Though it was unusual, he was ultimately satisfied with the experience. Themes of consumption or consumerism were also present in other students’ stories. Bryan spoke highly of his program in Thailand and Laos but acknowledged he and his cohort did not engage much with local individuals or culture outside of class-related or touristic encounters, including in their housing or leisure time. The group stayed in tourist hotels surrounded by other travelers, places with pools and bars for them to hang out in. During their non-class time in Bangkok, Bryan recognized he and his friends were “just expats doing expat things.” Bryan acknowledged some discomfort with the privilege with which his group traveled around southeast Asia, describing their transportation in luxury minivans. He said, They were completely decked out. Leather seats, captain’s chairs, curtains, DVD player. I’d never been in this nice a car in my life, and here I am in Laos, where there’s no development, but they’re like limousines. So we’re driving around in that from place to 81 place, and it’s all rural, it’s very lush. It’s almost like you’re going through the jungle in this decked-out, air-conditioned minibus. It was the weirdest juxtaposition. The surreal nature of the experience was magnified one day when the vans got pulled over by a military tank staffed by Laotian soldiers with machine guns. The students were fearful, but the soldiers simply confirmed they were Americans and then, to Bryan’s surprise, asked to take a picture with the group. Their conspicuous consumption, symbolized by the well-appointed vehicles, attracted ultimately not unpleasant but still unwanted attention outside the big city. Mia found she attracted attention in her homestay in Costa Rica for not being as much of a consumer as the family seemed to expect. She stayed with a seasoned host family which had hosted many U.S. students before, but she felt they did not quite know what to do with a non- White, non-wealthy student like her. Her host family had a rosy picture of life in the United States. Mia recalled a conversation where her host mother seemed to not realize the United States did indeed have people living in poverty and potholes in the roads, and Mia had to convince her otherwise. Mia also remembered another incident in which she was using an old, beat-up notebook for scratch paper, and her host mother chided her, saying she did not understand how anyone from the United States could use something of such poor quality. Mia had always been frugal and environmentally conscious and was simply trying to use up the item to avoid waste, but her lack of conspicuous consumption was treated with a degree of suspicion. Both Bryan and Mia expressed discomfort with the way the study abroad experience seemed to be designed to accommodate conspicuous consumption. Most students in this study were conscious of their spending and wanted to make responsible financial decisions, rather than consume with abandon. When they did make expenditures, they expected to get what they needed even if they were not sure how to advocate for it, such as Canelo’s desire to live in a 82 smoke-free home. Similarly, Drew evaluated the options between staying in his apartment that was not what he expected and moving to another homestay, and decided he was getting what he needed out of the arrangement. The situation was worth it for him, even though it was unusual and he had to stand up for himself against the apartment’s owner. In the preceding sections, I have shown how students’ narratives demonstrated the theme of Investing, which involved seeking status, deploying resources, and being consumers in study abroad. They sought to both fit in and stand out while trying to be smart investors and consumers. In the next section, I will turn to a second theme, Exploring, which demonstrates the ways participants sought to take advantage of every opportunity to maximize their investment. Exploring The second theme identified in this study is Exploring. Students spoke, often with pride, of study abroad as a time of adventure or escape, during which they had access to opportunities they did not have at home. They emphasized the role of independent travel in their study abroad experiences. Several students recalled travel adventures in which they behaved, whether by choice or need, in ways they would not under normal circumstances. Through exploration, the students tried to make the most of their time abroad. Adventure For centuries, travelers have ventured abroad in pursuit of goals ranging from economic capital to scientific knowledge to spiritual enlightenment. Student travelers are no exception. Thomas and Kerstetter (2022) identified that students “perceived seeing new cultures, having new experiences, and learning about new/different customs and people to be part of the purpose of [education abroad]” (p. 101). Many of the narratives I heard reflected a search for adventure, escape, or novelty, experiences students felt they could not find at home. 83 Canelo described her decision to study abroad as emanating from a sense of adventure and pursuit of the exotic. She said “My mentality then was very much open to adventure, taking risks. There were no limitations to where and how I could learn, and I really wanted to.” Studying abroad was a chance for her to explore and try new things. That she saw no limits reflects her openness, but also a neoliberal worldview. She saw the world as her oyster without recognizing the way her privilege, including having a U.S. passport and education, opened the door for her to learn anywhere and any way she could (Chakravarty et al., 2020). The representation of education abroad as an adventure and the world as open and ready to receive U.S. students and facilitate whatever lessons they wish to learn foregrounds the colonialist undertones of travel, tourism, and exploration in study abroad discourse (Ogden, 2007). Students frequently expressed apprehensiveness or recalled feelings of excitement mixed with unease when they set off on their education abroad journeys. Such trepidation often took place on arrival in country. Erica, for example, arrived in Ireland on a cold and overcast day and recalled, “I will never forget that flight because we landed and it was so dark and gray and raining so hard, and I just thought, ‘What have I signed up for? What in the world have I signed up for?’” Canelo expressed a similar mixture of uncertainty and exhilaration surrounding her arrival in Santiago. She vividly recalled her initial landing in Chile, saying, I was on a flight by myself with no one else from the program. There were general directions that somebody’s going to be there from the university to pick you up. And somebody was there, this older woman who had so much energy and was so excited for us. We all gathered and it was like this wild chaotic thing. And it was so funny. We got in 84 a big van. All of us looked at each other like, what is happening right now? Where are we? Are we doing this? Canelo’s sense of bewilderment manifested in amusement and physical laughter. Bryan also experienced laughter a physical outlet for the sense of exhilaration and unease heightened by the stress of a new geographical and cultural context. He shared, I remember when we landed in Thailand, and the feeling of that oppressive heat, that Southeast Asian heat in May or June, and being like, “Oh boy, I wasn’t ready for this.” And getting into taxis, and how there were no rules on the road. I don’t know if there were lines painted on the roads, but just downtown Bangkok, being in a taxicab, and five other taxis following us because our group was so big, and everyone’s just weaving, and me and my friends just laughing hysterically because we were scared to die. Such language exposes the way students positioned themselves as adventurers, boldly going somewhere new, with trepidation but also a perhaps unwarranted confidence borne of their status as U.S. passport holders and students. Ultimately, they trusted someone was going to take care of them, pick them up, show them the way. As in the examples above, students used language of bewilderment as they reflected on their journeys. They sometimes spoke similarly as they told stories that reflected their sense of awe at the opportunities they were having or the places they found themselves, how it was different than home and something they never fully expected to experience. However, this awe tended to stay surface level, focusing on novel or exotic touristic experiences. Bryan recalled being awestruck by his surroundings in Thailand. He told me a story about a night shortly after his arrival, sitting with his classmates at an outdoor bar on a main road in Bangkok. He said, 85 And we’re drinking and eating peanuts, having a snack. We’re all wide awake, but we’re realizing we need to go to sleep because class starts in the morning. And all of a sudden, a man with an elephant is walking down this major street. And it was just like, what are you talking about? You couldn’t have made it up. And it’s the most incredible memory because it was like, this is study abroad. Of course, on our first night in Thailand, we’re drinking beers in the middle of a road and a man with an elephant walks up. And it’s a massive elephant. And now we’re feeding him the peanuts. What is going on? Bryan’s statement “This is study abroad” reflects cultural expectations of education abroad as the pursuit of the exotic and novel. That moment remains in his memories as a quintessential study abroad moment, however it does not seem he ever actually answered his final question, “What is going on?” He does not unpack the tourist nature of the encounter, explore the colonialist undertones of U.S. students drinking beer and encountering a traditional animal in the streets of a modern city, or consider why the elephant’s handler chose to approach them. He could critically analyze the moment, but it would detract from the awe. The story works better on the surface. Mia was somewhat more thoughtful in her sense of awe, comparing and contrasting her experience with what she knew at home. She was struck by the natural beauty she found in Costa Rica and had been drawn to study there in part because she had learned about the country in high school and thought it looked beautiful. What she found was beyond her expectations. She recalled, I just loved all the trips to the forest and the beaches, and at the time, I had never seen water so clear. And the wildlife and the diversity and the ecology of the butterflies. I forget how many species of butterflies they have there, but it’s the most out of the world. And their history has been very much about agriculture. So I feel like I was able to 86 appreciate a different way of being that I didn’t know existed, in a different space that I didn’t know existed. [At home] our waters are not pristine, and we’re pretty flat. So to see the mountains and the waterfalls and the lushness…we go through a lot of drought, so there’s just a lot of contrast. So to me, to see another space that I had only seen in pictures and to see it in real life was meaningful. Mia took a reflective tone when considering the beauty she encountered in Costa Rica. Her privileging of the landscapes she explored abroad over those at home foregrounds the novelty of the experience and carries forward colonialist representations of new lands as unspoiled and ripe for development. The study abroad adventure was also sometimes positioned as an escape or reprieve from something happening in a student’s life. For example, Canelo recalled, “At the time they came to talk about study abroad, I knew I didn’t want to live with my current roommates anymore, and I thought, ‘well, this is kind of an easy way to get out of it.’” She was excited about the opportunity to study abroad in and of itself, but the avoidance of an uncomfortable conversation about her living arrangements was an added incentive to participate. Study abroad was a way to free oneself of pressures or unpleasant situations at home. In Canelo’s case, this was relatively simple and explicit, but for other students, the perception of escape was less conscious and more complex. Debby was dealing with a huge upheaval in her life after her mother died of cancer early in her sophomore year. Relatives suggested she consider taking a semester off from school, but Debby did not want to wallow. The process of planning and undertaking a study abroad experience gave her something else to occupy her mind, and that semester away acted as a time- out in which she could be something other than a grieving daughter and a strong older sister. 87 Debby’s comments about her aunt’s understanding of her desire to go also reflect her own feelings about her experience, I think my aunt would have been happy for me to go do something different and to get away and to have this new experience and to see that I was okay and that I was following through on something that I had wanted to do and that my mother had wanted me to do. Debby’s attitude toward returning home at the end of her program further betrays the relief she felt at being away. She would have liked to stay longer in Europe and continue traveling after her program ended, but she recalled feeling like she could not avoid home forever. She needed to return to support her family and continue her path to independent adulthood. She reflected, “It was some sort of obligation, like, ‘All right. Well, the semester’s over. I don’t want to pay to change my flight. I should probably just go home and deal with whatever.’” Debby reused this same framing a few years later, when she deferred her law school admission for a year to take a position as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. She was offered the chance to stay abroad longer by renewing her position, but she turned it down. She said, “They offered me a second year on my Fulbright, and I said no. I was like, ‘I need to go home and I need to go to law school and I need to get my life started.’” Debby’s framing of her time abroad both during and after college as liminal, not real life, mirrors cultural conceptions of travel and study abroad as an escape but also illuminates the privilege of her identity as a White, U.S. citizen whose passport codifies her ability to use other locations and cultures as respite from the neoliberal demands of U.S. cultural conceptions of adulthood (Chakravarty et al., 2020). Bryan summed up this sense of novelty and adventure nicely when reflecting on his overall experience, 88 I still have these images in my mind where it was hitting me in real time while I was there. Like, “Oh my God, look where you are right now…” And it’s like, “Oh my gosh, how freaking lucky and cool is this?” I didn’t have any of this on my bingo card for life. Students treated studying abroad as an adventure wherein they were experiencing novelty and awe on a regular basis, because they were living in locations and having experiences they never saw as possible for themselves. Once they made the investment in studying abroad, they wanted to squeeze everything they possibly could out of it, searching for adventure, novelty, and escape. They further sought these goals through independent travel, which will be discussed in the next section. Travel Students told stories that reflected a framing of their entire study abroad experience as an adventure, including smaller adventures that happened on program-related activities. But many of them also talked about individual adventures, usually related to travel away from their main host location. All but one individual I interviewed brought up independent travel on their study abroad in some way, whether talking about places they traveled, regrets about not traveling, travel experiences their peers had, or funny, scary, or meaningful experiences they had while traveling outside of their main education abroad program. The one person who did not talk about individual travel was Bryan. He was the only student who participated in a faculty-directed cohort program, in which the students traveled around Thailand and Laos as a group with a professor from their home university for two months. Because of the different structure of his program, independent travel would have been more challenging, and he did not express any regrets about not traveling on his own or with friends. 89 Mia, on the other hand, expressed regrets about not visiting other countries during her six months in Costa Rica. She did not feel she had the flexibility to travel because she was focused on doing well in her classes, since it was her senior year and she needed them to graduate. She told me, I was exclusively in Costa Rica, unfortunately. That was my only regret. I know some of my peers did go to Nicaragua, they went to Panama, they visited the Panama Canal and things like that. I couldn’t. I was taking actual classes that were hard and I wasn’t fluent in scholarly academic Spanish. I just had to put a lot more time into the readings, and I was very much actively engaged as being a student. So I do regret not taking advantage and going to the neighboring countries, especially since they were so close and so easy to get to. However, Mia did not confine herself just to the San Jose area. She explored throughout Costa Rica, visiting jungles and beaches and mountains with her classmates and local friends. Similarly, Canelo did not talk about traveling outside of Chile, but instead discussed a month-long break in the middle of the semester during which she traveled all over Chile with her friends. She said, We all traveled. A group of us went to the south of Chile. Some of us went to the beach together…we camped, we hiked, we learned a lot about Chilean history. We met so many amazing people. It was magical. It was a wonderful month. Though she talked about the social and touristic parts of traveling independently, Canelo also spoke about travel as a learning experience, noting the month traveling around the country accelerated her ability to speak and understand Spanish, as well as understand Chilean culture. 90 This was unusual; most of the people I talked to did not connect any learning outcomes to their independent travel. Instead, they spoke about their independent travel as entertainment or leisure, mixed with elements of personal growth. They also spoke about independent travel as something that was an expected or integral part of a study abroad experience. Those who felt they did less travel than was expected of them felt compelled to justify their choices in various ways. Mia tied her choice not to travel to her need to focus on her coursework. Amy, similarly, expressed her belief that she was different from other students because she did not travel much, partly for academic reasons. She said, I did travel a little bit, but I mostly was in Italy all the time. I do remember that people in my program did travel extensively, but I was so fixated on staying local… When I was studying abroad, a lot of students, every weekend they were going here or there for three days. Our classes were actually scheduled so that we couldn’t do that. We had classes Monday through Friday and on Fridays, we had exams. Amy’s overarching goal was to remain in Italy after the completion of her study abroad program, hence her fixation on staying local. Nonetheless, the subtext of her comment about the way her classes were scheduled is that she positions her study abroad program as more academically rigorous and culturally integrated than less serious programs which gave students three-day weekends in which to flit around Europe, rather than deeply engage in their host location. This framing mirrors discourses found in the literature on education abroad which bemoan the superficiality of students’ engagement with their host countries and the frequency of student weekend travel (e.g., Engle & Engle, 2002; Ogden, 2007). 91 Other students were far more positive about their travel. They talked about it proudly and unproblematically, as though of course weekend travel was an expected part of study abroad, and indeed, part of the value of the study abroad experience. Erica reflected, One thing I really loved, and I didn’t do this a ton, but I got to do a little bit of traveling in Europe. These were maybe the golden days of the 99 cent Ryanair flight. Just having the ability to be able to do that and hop on a flight for an hour and be somewhere totally different, just kind of blew my mind. Erica was excited by the chance to visit multiple countries. Though she qualifies that she did not travel much during her program, she stayed in Europe for an extra month after it ended to travel across the continent by train. She had saved up money to fund her travel by working as a server at her parents’ restaurant during summers and school breaks. For her, this was a dream come true, not a shameful secret. Drew and Rose had similar attitudes toward weekend travel. They both completed two- month summer programs in Spain, so their opportunities for travel were fewer than students who were abroad for an entire semester or longer. They spoke of travel as an exciting experience they were grateful to have. Drew had chosen to study in Spain over Latin America because his family had roots in other European countries he was interested in exploring. Raised Catholic, Drew also talked about visiting Rome and the Vatican and his delight at being able to bring back souvenirs from those locations for his Catholic family members. Rose talked about how she packed in travel to try to get the most bang for her buck of being in Europe, saying, I feel like we really tried to seize every opportunity we could to maximize every experience every weekend. I think maybe there was one weekend that we didn’t go 92 anywhere, and so I can’t even really say, “Well, I wish I would’ve done more.” Nope, because we really tried to do so much. And we did. Like Erica, Drew and Rose treated independent travel as a method to maximize their investment in their experience. They wanted to see as much as possible while they had the chance, not knowing if they would get another opportunity. Finally, Debby was the most vocal about the outsize role of travel in her education abroad experience. Her travel experiences were the most valuable thing she took from her study abroad semester. Unlike Amy, who was proud of her program’s rigorous academic schedule, Debby was unimpressed with the academic portion of her study abroad program. She believed the classes (organized by a U.S. state university) were easy compared to those at her home university. Discussing the quality of her French language course abroad, she told me “The purpose of that study abroad was not to learn French. The purpose of that study abroad was to be in Geneva” and by extension, Europe. Debby’s program reinforced her understanding about the primacy of travel in the European study abroad experience. Classes were scheduled Monday through Thursday, leaving long weekends for travel, and students were given two week-long breaks in the semester and a bus and Eurail pass for the duration their time in Geneva. Debby talked extensively about traveling to different European countries on weekends to meet up with friends from home who were also studying abroad. Debby was also the only student I spoke with whose family came to visit while she was abroad. Debby’s aunt and cousin came to see her during one of her week- long breaks, and they traveled throughout Switzerland and the surrounding region together. Taking Chances on Travel In their interviews, individuals in this study talked a number of times about things they did while studying abroad that they would not do in real life. They narrated times they behaved 93 recklessly or put themselves in potentially dangerous situations, most of which took place during independent travel. Some were relatively light-hearted or likely exaggerated, such as Mia’s casual mention of the time she “almost did fall off a cliff” while hiking with her friends, prompting good-natured ribbing about her klutziness for the rest of the semester. Others suggested far more serious consequences, sometimes (but not always) resulting from students’ own negligence. Debby recounted a trip to Austria as a comedy of errors, but it is only amusing in the context that nothing harmful ultimately happened. Debby was taking the train to Salzburg to visit a friend, but due to a massive rainstorm the rails were flooded. Passengers were forced off the train and had to find a bus to take them the rest of the way. Not knowing the language or how to find the correct bus, Debby had to trust a man she had just met. As she told the story, He was an Austrian grad student, and he was like, “I will take you where you need to go.” I was like, “Oh my God. I’m going to get raped.” But no. He found us a bus, and we got on the bus. We took the bus, and then we got on the train. Then we got to the next train station that had functioning trains in Austria. He was like, “You’re going to Salzburg? This is your train. Thank you. Have a good day.” This experience was not the last time she had to rely on the kindness of a stranger on that very same trip. She and her friend decided to visit a lake outside the city, where they had a picnic and split a bottle of wine. At the end of the evening, they missed the last bus back to Salzburg. Unsure what to do, they considered trying to find a hotel nearby, but Debby needed medical items she did not have with her. Two young women alone in an unfamiliar place where they did not speak the language, they decided their only option was to hitchhike back to the city. Debby recalled, 94 On the side of the road, we just stood there with our hands out like this, under a streetlamp, in the bus area. The first couple people weren’t going to Salzburg, so they left us be. Then this old man pulled up, and he had a child’s car seat in his back seat. [My friend] said, “I think he’s not going to kill us because he has a car seat back here.” I was like, “Okay.” So he didn’t speak English. He didn’t speak Spanish. He didn’t speak French. I didn’t speak German. But we made it back to Salzburg. That is among the wilder experiences of my semester abroad. When I asked Debby what she valued about her time studying abroad, she talked about the freedom she had to travel and explore. And while she certainly did have that freedom, it came with an element of danger. Her experiences hitchhiking, relying on strangers, traveling alone, are all generally regarded as ill-advised. Debby herself noted she would never do these things in her real life, further positioning the time abroad as a liminal space where the normal rules do not apply. Yet her tongue in cheek references to the very real possibility that she could have been harmed by one of these strangers belie the carefree attitude she projects. Rose told a similar story about her trip to Italy with a friend after her program in Salamanca ended. They had hoped to travel by train from Barcelona to Rome but discovered the train schedule did not align with their plans. Instead, they ended up taking an overnight ferryboat to the Roman port and making their way into the city. They had made no plans for where they would stay or what they would do when they arrived. In Rose’s mind, it was fun and adventurous, although as she started to tell the story, she added, “When I say this out loud, it sounds really crazy because it is. In hindsight, it was probably not smart, and I don’t think we had watched the movie Taken.” She continued, 95 You get off at the train station in Rome, and there’s tons of people from different hostels and hotels trying to recruit you to come stay with them. And there was someone with a sign that said Midwest Hotel. And we were like, “What? What’s that? For real? There’s a Midwest Hotel?” And so sure enough, there was. We went with the man with the Midwest Hotel sign because we were very trusting and apparently didn’t think we were going to get sex trafficked. And it ended up being incredibly nice. Super fun, cool place in a really great location. Like Debby, Rose recognized the recklessness of this behavior in hindsight, but she also talked about it with a small sense of pride. She could hold her own in an unfamiliar country, she could be a risk-taker and things would work out. Even Amy, who presented herself as one of the most mature and serious of my interviewees during her study abroad experience, had a story like this. She and a friend were visiting France and due to travel delays arrived very late at night. She recalled, I remember not being able to find this place we were staying and we ended up being approached by somebody who asked if we needed help. And automatically, that’s like a red flag. It was really late at night and we were two girls, and this was an older gentleman, and I remember him saying, “Oh, I know exactly where this place is. Here, I’ll show you.” And we’re going through all these twists and turns. I just remember thinking, “Gosh, this is the worst idea ever.” But at the same time, we really need to find where we’re going and we have no other good options at this point. And this person ended up taking us exactly where we needed to go. It was not a thing, but it’s one of those things that you think, “Oh, that could have actually gone really different.” But I think that there’s always this element when you’re traveling of risk- 96 taking. Sometimes you do it because you’re in a different context and you’re not realizing it and sometimes you’re doing it out of necessity… When you’re in these situations that feel a bit desperate, you do things that are probably less wise than you would do otherwise. These women, Amy, Debby, and Rose, all use similar narrative devices to tell these stories, including making wry or flippant comments about the truly terrible things that could have happened to them as a way of acknowledging but also minimizing the danger. Whether then or now (or both) they know they were taking a calculated risk trusting strange men in unfamiliar locations. Yet they also accept that, at the time, they had few other options. They did not have access to the technologies they might use now to get out of this type of situation, like cell phones, Uber, or Google Maps. That these are the stories they remember, that they can laugh ruefully at or be flippant about from the safety of their kitchens or offices a decade and a half later, chatting with a researcher (who has some stories of her own) speaks to the role of danger and fear in cultural conceptions of women’s travel (Fic, 2018). The film Rose referenced, Taken, involves a college-aged young woman abducted while traveling abroad with a friend and her father’s race to find her before her captors can harm her. The basic plot of the film is so well- known that its name has become a shorthand for the dangers of traveling. Travel abroad is portrayed as opening the door for physical danger and violence against young women (Hankin, 2021). Drew recounted with pride a story of his own dangerous experience, although his was an explicit choice to rebel against program strictures. He was studying abroad in Northern Spain in July, when the Running of the Bulls takes place in Pamplona. Students in his program were told 97 they could attend the festival, but they were not to participate in the Running of the Bulls. Drew, who was not an especially rebellious student, heard this as a challenge. He and a friend decided they were going to sneak away and run with the bulls. He described the experience, It’s an exhilarating thing…I was maybe two arms lengths away from the bulls. I didn’t pet any of them or anything like that, but I surely couldn’t get any further away from them because there was a wall of drunk people between me and the exit. But the funny thing is, we ran with them for a while and then we walked because the whole thing lasts like three minutes. There’s this big barrier that you have to climb in and out of along the path. And we climbed out and totally unknown to us, our friends happened to be there, so they snapped a picture of us. Me, dressed in the traditional dress, climbing out of the path of the Running of the Bulls. And that is probably, besides my children and my wedding pictures, my personal most prized photo. Drew freely admitted he was not much of a rule breaker, but something about this opportunity made him throw caution to the wind. Though it was a reckless choice, it was indeed his choice. Thousands of people participate in the Running of the Bulls every year, and while statistically Drew could expect to be fine, injuries and deaths do happen. Unlike the women’s experiences recounted above, Drew was not putting himself in a dangerous situation out of need or lack of better choices, but for fun and for the story. He summed it up, “So we broke the rules. We broke the one rule. They didn’t have any rules about drinking or drugs or anything. It was, ‘You will not run with the bulls.’ And we said, ‘To hell with that.’” Drew was a conscientious student, a respectful son, a campus leader. He worked hard to help pay for his education and felt the weight of his family’s goal for him to be the first to finish college. He saw an opportunity to take a chance on his study abroad program, and he took it. 98 These were not students who had regular opportunities to travel or explore. Studying abroad was a chance to do new things, see new places, that they might never have again. They were not going to be held back by the possible dangers. However, the students were not unthinkingly reckless. Their risks were usually calculated, with a goal in mind, whether desperation to find their hotel or desire for a good story. Risk-taking for no good reason, or putting unsuspecting others in danger, was not acceptable. Bryan spoke with still palpable anger about a fellow student who put his entire group in danger by lying to authorities at an airport in Laos for no discernible reason. This student’s backpack set off a security sensor, and a guard told him he could not board the flight with a knife in his bag. The student insisted he did not have a knife and taunted the security guard, who appeared reluctant to search the bag. Eventually the student won the game of chicken and the guard let him through. Bryan continued the story, As we’re getting on the flight, we’re walking on the tarmac, and the student opens his bag and shows me the knife in it. And I just was like, “What is wrong with you? Why?” And I just remember thinking, “Offensive, abusive, you endangered all of us, how selfish.” It was not that Bryan never made any unwise choices while he was studying abroad. He told me a story about an ill-advised boat trip down the river, fearing the small boat would capsize in the rough water and having to use his hands to help bail water out. But that was an error of misjudgment, maybe over-enthusiasm, not an inexplicable decision to endanger self and others for no reason Bryan could discern other than an adrenaline rush. The fear of gendered violence that is an undercurrent of the women’s stories highlights the differences in the ways these women and men remembered their travel adventures and their decisions to take risks. The young women made choices that seemed dangerous when they had 99 no other good options to keep themselves safe and housed. The dangers they faced were different than the dangers that might have awaited young men in the same situation. The men I spoke to shared risk-taking experiences where they made their own decisions based on desire, not desperation. Situations like being lost in another country can happen to anyone, but the men did not share such memories with me. Perhaps those situations were not as memorable to the men as they were to the women because the men’s experiences did not carry the same threat of gendered violence. In the preceding section, I have demonstrated the ways participants in this study remembered and represented their education abroad as adventure and travel experiences. They shared stories of trepidation, novelty-seeking, awe, travel, and risk-taking. In the following section, I discuss how participants invested in exploration as a means of achieving personal growth and development, becoming the adults they hoped to be. Becoming Participants in this study remembered and represented the study abroad experience as a time of personal development, learning about themselves and the world and navigating greater independence and responsibility. Although some of these learning moments happened in class or were related to course topics, participants did not remember or share many details of their academic coursework. Instead, they were focused on how they learned from immersion and experience as their identity and independence evolved. As they recounted both quotidian and extraordinary events, they did so with a sense that the study abroad experience was not real life, it was a liminal time between adolescence and adulthood in which they were becoming more of the person they hoped to be in the future. 100 Navigating Daily Life For as much time as students spent talking about flashy or adventurous moments of their study abroad experience, they also emphasized the value of their day-to-day experiences. By and large, they were aware of the time-limited nature of their experiences, but not every moment could be one for the record books. They were still students, taking classes, cooking meals, buying cell phones and postage stamps, and doing myriad other life tasks, sometimes for the first time on their own. For many students in this study, living day-to-day life in a new place was an important aspect of their study abroad experiences. Other than Amy, whose goal was to continue living in her host community after graduation, students did not express a great deal of interest in integrating into their local communities or being accepted as a local. They were interested in living like locals for a time, trying on what it might mean to be part of a different culture, but ultimately did not seem to change (or want to change) their own ingrained habits or adopt local customs beyond the superficial, such as Rose’s continued preference for the Spanish meal schedule with a later lunch and dinner hour or Erica’s extended use of the word mobile in place of cell phone, which continued well after her return to the United States. Their general indifference to becoming locals does not mean they were disinterested in their host communities. Many were required or actively chose to live with local individuals. Erica, for instance, was excited to be placed in an apartment with Irish students. She had purposely chosen to study abroad in an English-speaking location so she would be able to get to know the local people and culture without a language barrier and living with local students was a way to act upon her goal. Amy also found living with local students a meaningful experience. 101 Her experience was different than Erica’s because Amy had to find her own place to live. She described the process, Me and this girl that I met went to the local universities and looked on the boards for advertisements for houses and took the little ticket that was there…we ended up finding a room that we shared in an apartment with other Italian students, and they didn’t speak English really. I don’t have any recollection of ever speaking to them in English. And gosh, they probably just thought it was so unusual that we wanted to live in their house when I think back on it now. And to us, it was so interesting to live with these people. By living with local students, Amy and Erica were able to build social and cultural capital that helped them adjust in their host cultures. Both Amy and Erica reflected on how sharing domestic space with local students enabled small interactions and everyday engagements like watching television together that accumulated to help them achieve breakthroughs in their cultural understanding. Amy felt her living arrangement helped her language learning. She recalled, “Learning a language took so much time and energy. Even when I was living with these Italians, I remember so many days and so many dinners sitting in the kitchen and not understanding anything, until one day, I did.” Erica used similar language to reflect on her understanding of an Irish sense of humor. She said, I remember my friends would have us watch Father Ted, a very Irish TV show, and the first couple of episodes, I was like, “I don’t get this, or I don’t know if this is that funny.” And then you start to understand more of the cultural nuances or you start to understand maybe the references that are being made. So you start to get it a little bit more, then it’s like, “Oh, this is actually really funny.” 102 Amy and Erica both shared feelings of deeper integration into local culture through living with local students than most of the students who lived with host families or other U.S. peers. Some students who lived with host families talked of experiencing both day-to-day and significant events, good and bad, alongside their hosts. Mia, for example, attended her host sister’s quinceañera, a traditional 15th birthday celebration for girls in Latin American countries, while she was in Costa Rica. Mia also spoke of the way she tried to be present with her host family, and in turn they made efforts to include her in their lives. She said, I did try, as much as I could, to do as many things with the family [as possible]. I mean, visiting grandma, any very basic things. I feel like that also gave me a sense of what it was to just be a Costa Rican. Canelo experienced both celebrations and sadness with her host family. They threw her a birthday party when she turned 20 in Chile, inviting lots of family and friends and making her feel special. Later in the semester, Canelo was present for a more challenging family experience, the death of a loved one. She told me, The host mom, her mom died when I was there, so that was really sad and they were grieving. And so the last few weeks were a little awkward, because it’s not my family so I was sad for them, but it was kind of weird. But it was also a really sweet experience to be able to be there for them and be able to just support them and be a little bit of light in their day when it was such a sad time. These daily interactions resulted in close relationships, some of which have lasted beyond the study abroad experience and others which have not. Canelo is still close with her host sister, who attended her wedding several years ago. Amy is still friends with the U.S. friend who shared a room with her, but not the Italian students whose apartment they lived in. These intimate 103 domestic relationships are time-limited by the nature of the study abroad experience and are represented as such by students. For the most part, these connections were not about building lifelong relationships but about making the most of the time they shared together. Students also shared stories of doing daily life things in new contexts. For some, they were aided by their host families or roommates, while others navigated more independently or alongside their U.S. peers. Mia, for example, talked about going with the flow and following her host family’s lead to try new things that were not particularly exotic or unusual, just things she happened to have never done before. She said, My host mom’s going to go to Zumba, we’re going to go to Zumba. I had never dyed my hair ever, but I got my first highlights there because that’s what we were going to do. I was like, “Okay, let’s go do it.” I got my first pedicure there because a woman on the corner, that’s what she would do for some extra cash, and my host sister was going to go there. So I was like, “All right, let’s just go.” What does a Costa Rican do on a Saturday morning? Oh, we go to the farmer’s market. Well, then let’s just do it. Or what do you eat? Oh, we grab lunch from this place. Mia felt her Spanish fluency helped her connect more with her host family, especially her host mom, than she might have otherwise, and this relationship allowed her to experience more of the typical Costa Rican experience. Erica identified her semester in Ireland as the first time she had to navigate being an adult on her own. She had only previously lived with her parents or on campus at her small liberal arts college. She found living in an apartment with local students helped her navigate daily life tasks. She reflected, 104 Studying abroad is kind of the first time that I really had to grow up because I was now responsible for grocery shopping and now responsible for just figuring out all that kind of stuff, where to go buy a duvet, things like that. But living with local students, I lucked out. My housemates were really, really nice, really kind, very inclusive too. Amy also reflected on learning to do everyday tasks while abroad with the help of her local roommates. She said, I learned to do a lot of things in Italy that I didn’t know how to do before like cooking, for example. My roommates knew how to cook fairly well, and so just watching them, I learned to do things like this that I hadn’t learned growing up as much. And even to this day, some of the things I do, I do because I learned them there because it was just a formative time in my life where you learn those things and I just happened to be in that context. Amy and Erica’s comments align with perceptions of the traditional college experience, independent of study abroad, as a transitional time when students begin to take on more adult responsibilities and develop habits and practices that contribute to feeling more like an adult (Silver, 2024). Several students found meaning in their day-to-day routines abroad. Drew, for example, appreciated getting to know the city he was living in through quotidian activities like grocery shopping and getting his hair cut. He also regularly went running to explore different parts of the city. In Drew’s case, this led to a physical transformation when he lost a significant amount of weight while studying abroad. Canelo spoke about using the routine of physical movement as a way of processing her experiences. All students on Canelo’s program were required to participate in service-learning, 105 so Canelo volunteered at a center for women and children who had experienced domestic violence. Canelo assisted with caring for the children while their mothers received job training or other support. Getting to the center required Canelo to take a bus and then walk 20 minutes through an area of the city she did not normally visit. Though she did not think of it this way at the time, she now identifies she used the time for reflection and meditation, processing her experiences through solitude and physical movement. Some students expressed a sense of pleasure or excitement from the fact they were doing these quotidian activities in proximity to famous landmarks or locations. Debby, for instance, recalled how close she was to the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations in Geneva. She said, The research I had to do to write my papers was at the U.N. library, and so we had U.N. library passes that we could just ride two bus stops and go to the U.N. The bus stop for where we were was the World Health Organization, just right behind the W.H.O. No big deal. Debby also told me she would ride the bus to the stop near the United Nations to go to a public pool, where she swam daily for exercise and to keep in shape for her club team at home. She acknowledged she was doing similar things to what she would be doing at home, just in a different, more exciting location. On reflection, many students identified the types of activities they were engaging in were not altogether different from what they might do at home, they were just navigating them in a different geographical and cultural context. Erica talked about the kinds of things she did on a daily basis such as walking to class, hanging out on campus, going for a run, grabbing dinner or drinks with her housemates and friends. She said, 106 I feel like it was the same things that I would probably have been doing in [the Pacific Northwest] just across the pond. It did not feel entirely different, but in my mind it probably was, because I wasn’t in [the Pacific Northwest]. I was probably smug about that… It wasn’t different, but it felt different because it was new scenery or new topics to study or new faces that I was meeting. In the moment, everything felt fresh and exciting for Erica, perhaps because because her time in Galway was the first time she felt like an independent adult. With the benefit of hindsight, she can see her day-to-day activities were very similar to what she did at home. Amy also drew a direct parallel between her life at home on the U.S. West Coast and her life in Italy. She said, We’d do our classes. I didn’t really use the study center other than to go to class. Sometimes I studied there but very rarely. And then I would just go to my volunteer activity maybe or I would go for a walk, or we had this great park next to my apartment and I would sit and read maybe. It was just a lot of everyday normal things that one does…My roommates were home a lot and so I would hang out in our very small kitchen if I saw them in there, and watch Italian television with them, or if they were cooking, we would have meals together. It wasn’t that unrecognizable from my life in [West Coast city], I guess. It was just transferred to Italy. It wasn’t so different really. Reflecting on her semester in Costa Rica, Mia had a similar realization about her day-to- day experiences. She recognized how not only was her daily life in Costa Rica not so different from her home life back then, it also is not so different from her life now as a working adult. Mia said, 107 I mean, the day to day honestly seems very close to now, just work and go to class and come back and study, and maybe sometimes on the weekends go to the market and go with my host mom to buy the groceries for the week or go to the Zumba class, things like that. Just errands. I did do a lot with the family, the mom in particular. We’d watch TV in the evenings. With the passing of time, the students identify the day-to-day experiences they had abroad were not terribly different from what they would have been doing at home. While they recognize how the things they were doing were like home, they do not identify their study abroad locations with a sense of home. Erica noted the difference between feeling welcome in Ireland (she did) and feeling like she fit in (she did not). Even Amy, who intended to stay in Italy, did not frame Italy as having become her home. She told me that after having lived abroad for so many years, she now feels more at home outside the United States, but not necessarily in any one place. Prazeres (2018) identified how Canadian students abroad used familiarity with everyday locations and practices in their new cities to demonstrate being at home as a form of cultural capital that afforded them a measure of distinction upon return home. My participants did not articulate being at home in a new culture as a form of distinction, perhaps because, coming from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, just going to the location was a distinction. They did not need to claim a home there to achieve the distinction they found valuable. Learning and Growing as a Person For the most part, students did not remember or did not discuss the details of the courses they took abroad. The classroom activities were not the most valued or memorable parts of their experience. A few were able to discuss some finer details with me because they had looked at 108 their records to prepare for our interviews, but by and large the academic details were hazy in their memories and not something they talked a lot about. However, the lack of detail about the overall academic experience does not mean students did not remember specific moments of learning or realization with vivid clarity. Moments of Realization Canelo shared a story about a class that was transformative for her. She described it as a course on “the socioeconomic history of Chile across culture and capitalism.” Her courses were taught by and taken with local Chileans, not limited to just the U.S. students, and Canelo usually kept quiet and took a lot of notes. But in this class, she changed as the semester progressed. Canelo shared, That class, I started talking more and more in. I was a finance major, and so all of my analysis around things was usually economics-based. And I remember at one point the teacher was like, “[Canelo], where’s your heart?” And I was like, “What?” He’s like, “Where is your spirit, your heart? All of your papers are about the economic cost of war and dictatorship. What about the human emotion side? What about the human element?” And I was like, “Oh, that’s a thing?” And he was kind of worried about me, I think. But he really opened my eyes to seeing things outside of just economics. I’m a math person through and through. I see things from the numerical side first and that was my default. And he really opened my eyes to the human experience here is what we’re getting at, not just the economic cost of war and drugs and dictatorship. Her story about the class, and the professor asking her to think with her heart, is indicative of a mindset shift she believes started during her semester in Chile. 109 Canelo described herself as “so Type A, so competitive” when she arrived in Chile. Through her classes, volunteer work at the shelter, and relationships with Chilean classmates and her host family, she began to see things differently. She reflected, I saw that mindset shift around what it means to learn, take risks, what it means to put yourself in vulnerable situations, and then take on the empathy of someone else in vulnerable situations and look for that and support them instead of trying to be better than them. Because my personality before was, “Well, I know how to do that, and I don’t have problems with that. I figured it out. How did you not?” And now I have a way different perspective on it, and I appreciate that I came around to having more empathy and more concern. Canelo acknowledged some of her personality came from how she was raised, in a family and capitalistic society where time and money were treated as scarce resources to compete for. She felt her experiences in Chile opened her eyes to a different way she could look at the world and a different kind of person she could be. Canelo and Mia both reflected on new perspectives on the United States after their semesters abroad. Canelo was surprised to learn about the U.S. government and politics from the Chilean perspective, and especially about U.S. intervention in other countries. She recounted, I had never learned really about U.S. politics and government, and I wasn’t really interested in it before, but [I was after] learning how our government puts its hands and money into other countries for good or bad. We put Pinochet in power and he became a dictator and murdered so many people. And the U.S. government trained him and gave him the money and people power to do that… I didn’t see poverty before. I didn’t see pain and suffering before, and all of a sudden it was everywhere in front of my eyes and 110 our government had something to do with it. It definitely pushed me from a political standpoint to understand what my values were and what I wanted to fight for, and how I wanted to leave the world a little bit of a better place. Canelo’s awakening in Chile changed her political beliefs and affiliations, marking the first time she thought seriously about politics separately from what her parents believed and the values she had been raised with. Mia also had a defining perspective shift regarding economic and political power in one of her sociology classes in Costa Rica. In a class discussion on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which was just coming into effect during her time abroad, Mia asked a question she now identifies as well-meaning but naïve about power differentials between countries. She reflected, I’d been in Costa Rica for a while but I was still very much in my U.S. perspective where, “Oh, of course, countries come together and they negotiate on equal playing fields, of course.” And so, I think it was that moment that shifted my mindset to think that “Oh, actually that’s not true. I’ve just had the privilege of never having to think about it because I am in the country that’s better positioned, that has the power, economic power during these negotiations.” And so, it was just a moment of realization that other countries experience these political dynamics in different ways than the United States. In recounting this story, she expressed a couple of times that she does not find this realization profound at all now. She said, In hindsight, it’s like, well, duh, obviously countries experience it differently, but I just never had to think about it…So, I feel like it was a simple realization, but it was actually a very important one because it got me out of my U.S.-centric frame. 111 While Mia downplayed the profundity of her realization, she acknowledged it had an important influence on her worldview and how she thinks about power dynamics to this day. As a sociology major, she had been exposed to some of these ideas before, but in Costa Rica she understood them for the first time as realities more than abstract concepts. Bryan had a similar realization based on conversations in one of his classes in Southeast Asia, though the actual moment of realization he shared with me did not happen during class, but while the group was crossing the border between Thailand and Laos. He said, When we crossed the border into Laos, there was a sign that said, “The importation of illegal narcotics and drugs into Thailand is a capital crime.” I have a picture of this somewhere. “The penalties are imprisonment, execution, and confiscation of property.” I remember thinking, “How is execution not last on this list? What is worse than that? Why do I care if you take my things after I’m dead?” And then it hit me, because that’s how an American thinks. There, the fact that your property would be taken away meant that it dispossesses your family of their land, of their livelihood, of their homes. And if you’re the breadwinner, that would be everything. And so that was a core part of the way that punishment or accountability worked, it wasn’t just an individual thing. It had communitarian and familial effects. And I remember…that realization of how little I really knew about how the rest of the world works. It was so striking. And I’m sure I wouldn’t have made that conclusion, hadn’t it been for the classes we’d already been taking, and learning about the central role of the family and the kinship structures. 112 Like Canelo and Mia, Bryan independently connected a class concept to a real-world experience in a way that might not have been possible without the experience of being in the country he was learning about. These were profound realizations for the students, at least at the time they experienced them, and they have continued to influence how they think about the world and the choices they make in their lives. Bryan’s study abroad experience in Southeast Asia helped inspire him to apply for the Peace Corps a few years later. With her mindset shift from Chile, Canelo pivoted from her go-getter plans to have a corner office job in downtown Chicago, and after graduation she joined a service program and taught high school math in under-resourced communities for several years. Mia applied her new perspective on power dynamics to a U.S. context, where it informed her thinking about intranational as well as international systems. When she applied for a job with an organization that served a U.S. minority community very different from her own, she relied on realizations from her time abroad in her interview to demonstrate how she would approach entering a different community. These moments, spurred by class conversations, held long-term importance for these students. Language and Culture Learning Four of the eight students I spoke with had language learning goals for their time abroad. Amy, Canelo, Drew, and Rose all explicitly identified learning or increasing their fluency in a second language as an important facet of their study abroad experience. Both Rose and Drew had Spanish majors before participating in study abroad, and completing major requirements was part of their motivation for going. Drew was particularly serious about improving his oral proficiency in Spanish, as he was required to take an oral exam to meet state licensing requirements for a world language teacher. For him, language and cultural learning were 113 intertwined. Drew shared with me about a sort of game his Spanish culture class developed. He said, We developed it almost into a segment, if you will, like a late-night show. And we’d just call it Es Normal? Is this normal? And we would present these scenarios that we saw out in the real world. And I remember one conversation was like, “Is it normal for old people to cut in line?” And the instructor was like, “What do you mean by a line?” And that was just it, there wasn’t a line. You didn’t politely wait in line, you got in front. This type of language and cultural understanding was important for Drew’s future professional goals. Canelo had studied Spanish for several years before going to Chile, but she had not considered a major until she returned to her home campus and discovered she had nearly completed the requirements without realizing it. Studying the language was an important part of her time in Chile but not geared toward a particular credential. The major came almost accidentally. Amy, on the other hand, was dedicated to learning Italian as preparation for remaining in Italy independently at the conclusion of her program. She had some previous familiarity with the language from her earlier, short study abroad program and her college’s language requirement, but she did not have any declared major or minor in Italian. Amy reflected that she accomplished what she set out to do. She said, I learned Italian. I’m fluent in Italian now. I still make lots of errors in a sense, but I’m fully functional and I can work in Italian. And in fact, I did work in Italian for a number of years. So I did what I wanted to do. That was really my goal. I really wanted to learn Italian. 114 Like Amy, the other students for whom language learning was an important goal went on to use their language skills in their future endeavors. Rose taught high school Spanish for several years and now uses her language skills in her work with undocumented and international students in higher education. After graduation, Canelo spent several years living and working in a primarily Latinx community within the United States. She later returned to Chile and worked there for several years, marrying a Chilean man and now raising half-Chilean, bilingual children. Drew told me with relief that he passed his oral proficiency exam shortly after returning from Spain, making a purposeful choice to take it as soon as possible while the material was still fresh in his mind. He credited his time in Spain with helping him feel significantly more comfortable in a world language classroom, which was not his original choice of subject specialty. He had planned to teach social studies and added the Spanish major as a back-up, something he thought might make him a little bit more marketable. He never did end up teaching social studies. He was hired as a world language teacher right after graduation and continued in that subject until he was promoted into school administration. Other students had different relationships with language study during their time abroad. Debby had already completed her college’s world language requirement by studying Spanish on campus, but she was required to take Introductory French as part of her study abroad program in Geneva. She enjoyed learning languages, so she did not mind this requirement, but she did not find the class or professor especially engaging. Her attitude was that the purpose of her program was not to learn French, but to be in Europe. As the child of Mexican immigrants, Mia was fluent in Spanish before she went to Costa Rica. However, she quickly found her Mexican Spanish was considered inferior by locals, and the academic Spanish required to take disciplinary content courses was more challenging than she expected. 115 Other narratives students shared about cultural learning were less introspective. Several students expressed developing a deep interest in what they called the recent or living history of their study abroad locations during their time abroad. They felt they were living in or adjacent to exciting times in their host countries, especially when they met or engaged with individuals who experienced historical events in real time. Erica described this interest in detail, saying, I felt like Irish history at the time, modern Irish history, was such a living history. I mean, the Good Friday Agreement had only been signed maybe, what was it like six, seven years before. The country wasn’t even officially a hundred years old yet, things like that. So it felt very living and people that I interacted with, other students I interacted with, had perspectives on all of these changes occurring. Fittingly with this perspective, Erica’s most memorable course excursion was a tour along the route of the 1972 demonstration that came to be known as Bloody Sunday, led by a participant who had been there on the day. Canelo, meanwhile, spoke of Chile’s emergence from dictatorship, well within the lifetime of her host mother, and how the dictatorship was still a very real topic of conversation. She recalled, That time was only maybe ten years after the dictator was finally out of power, because he was voted out but he still maintained a government position for another couple years. It was not even a generation after that, so you could sense it everywhere and people would ask you, “What’s your opinion of the dictator?” And I was like, “I’m not a Chilean. Why would I give you an opinion about someone I don’t know and I didn’t live through?” 116 Both Rose and Drew, who studied in different cities in Spain, also mentioned the palpable memory of a dictator. They both separately spoke about seeing monuments to Francisco Franco in their respective Spanish cities while grappling with learning about the lingering effects of his dictatorship, which had ended just 30 years prior and which they knew very little about before studying abroad. The unspoken implication of these characterizations is that the U.S. students came from a place where history was not living or recent. As an example, the students did not connect the events of September 11, 2001, to their study abroad experiences even though those events took place only a few years prior and were a defining part of U.S. history and culture during their adolescence. Rose mentioned a high school trip canceled shortly after the attacks, but it did not weigh in on her decision to study abroad a few years later. The students did not link those events to living history even though they had lived and were living through them and their aftermath. The novelty and adventure of the study abroad experience made the political and social history in their host countries seem fascinating and fresh compared to the United States. Students recalled being asked about U.S. culture, politics, and influence while abroad, but did not seem to make the connection that the living history they were intrigued by in their host countries might also be happening in their own. Some students remembered being surprised by people in their host country talking about or asking their opinions on events happening in the United States. For example, Canelo, who studied abroad during the George W. Bush administration, recalled being surprised to be asked for her opinion on the president by multiple people in Chile. Reflecting on the experience, she shared, “It made me realize the U.S. has an influence around the world that I never knew about. I had no idea that folks were learning about our politics, our country, our culture through Hollywood, through news.” Rose, who studied in 117 Spain a few years later during Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, also recalled comments and questions about U.S. politics. She explained her reaction at the time as thinking “Wow, look at all these other people in the world who are so in tune with what is happening in the U.S., but how many people in the U.S. have any clue what’s going on in other countries?” Though these two women had similar reactions to similar experiences, they responded in different ways, perhaps partly based on the different environments in which they had these experiences. Canelo was reeling from her newfound realizations about the negative outcomes of U.S. interference in her host country and facing questions about an unpopular administration that had recently undertaken similar interference in the Middle East, and she responded with righteous anger and a desire to stand up to injustice. Rose, meanwhile, was being asked about a presidential campaign whose central message was about change and progress, and her reaction was less critical, encouraging her fellow U.S. citizens to learn more about other countries out of a sense of positivity and neighborliness. Chapter Summary In this chapter, I have explored the findings from this study’s first research question: How do individuals of lower-socioeconomic status remember (in the past) and represent (currently) their education abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed? I have demonstrated how themes of Investing, Exploring, and Becoming are present in these individuals’ narratives of their study abroad experiences. Students used language and terms related to investment and theories of capital to discuss how they achieved status and distinction, deployed resources toward accomplishing their goals, and recognized the consumerist facets of their experience. They further reflected on education abroad as a time of exploring, in which they sought adventure and novelty. They strongly associated their education abroad experiences with 118 travel and recalled memorable experiences in which they chose to or felt they had no other choice but to behave in ways they would not in real life. Finally, the individuals in this study narrated their education abroad experiences as a time of becoming, in which they navigated daily life with greater independence and practiced being adults in a new context. While they experienced profound moments of learning abroad, they did not recall details of their academic coursework and instead focused on instances of personal development and the ways they were evolving into the people they hoped to be. In the next chapter, I will explore these three themes in relation to existing cultural perceptions of education abroad, the Grand Tour and the study abroad employability narratives. 119 CHAPTER 5: NUANCING CULTURAL NARRATIVES OF STUDY ABROAD In the previous chapter, I explored three recurring themes in the ways my participants, former students of lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, remembered and represented their education abroad experiences after many years. Those themes were Investing, Exploring, and Becoming. In this chapter, I answer the second research question by examining these themes in relation to two existing cultural narratives of study abroad presented earlier in this study, the Grand Tour narrative and the study abroad employability narrative. These existing narratives are dominant stories about education abroad that are present in the social and cultural contexts in which these individuals are living and narrating their lives. Cultural narratives reflect societally acceptable storylines a life or experience can follow. For example, a socially acceptable storyline in the Grand Tour narrative of study abroad would be a wealthy White woman who puts half-hearted effort into some throwaway classes and spends most of her time abroad jet-setting to various European capitals for long weekends. A version of a socially acceptable storyline in the study abroad employability narrative could be a study abroad student simply collecting an experience, checking off a box to add to their accumulation of capital in the form of a line on a resume, rather than deeply engaging in a learning experience. The narratives of the former students in my study reflect these cultural narratives, but also push back on them in direct and indirect ways. In doing so, they create a more nuanced picture of the meaning and value of a study abroad experience. Furthermore, they contribute to the narrative accumulation that becomes a tradition and acts as both a constraint and foundation for possible new stories and modes of interpretation (Bruner, 1991). 120 Investing in Relation to Cultural Narratives Students’ stories of investing in study abroad comprised three main subthemes: seeking status, deploying resources, and being consumers. These economic interpretations have implications for both the Grand Tour and the study abroad employability narratives. I will explore each of these in turn in the following sections. Seeking status In the neoliberal discourse underpinning the study abroad employability narrative, students are engaged in a zero-sum game in which they must shoulder individual responsibility for their success or failure in the job market after graduation. Lehmann (2012) argued that extra- credential inflation perpetuates social class inequalities as more privileged students set themselves apart through capital-intensive out of class experiences such as study abroad and internships, moving the bar for everyone. No longer is just an undergraduate degree enough to earn a good job and middle-class lifestyle, but now one must have additional experiences. This dovetails with a societal evolution in which exclusionary and gatekeeping practices increasingly rely on privileging individual achievement and make the achievement of economic stability or social mobility an individual responsibility (Lehmann, 2012, Holdsworth, 2017). Munt (1994) argued that travel has become an important form of distinction, an informal labor market qualification with the “passport acting, so to speak, as professional certification; a record of achievement and experiences” (p. 112). Therefore, students could be expected to study abroad for strategic, future-oriented reasons. However, individuals in my study rarely represented their education abroad as part of a strategy for their future. Other than Amy, who had a clear goal to remain in Italy at the end of her 121 program, the former students I spoke with did not express explicit strategic purposes, or even many broad goals, for studying abroad. As Mia explained, I didn’t go because I wanted some professional development. I just wanted to visit this country that was beautiful that I’d only seen in pictures. And this was a way to go for free and live there for six months, and it sounded like a fun deal. So, I was like, “I’m never going to be able to do this, so let’s do it.” So, I didn’t have any strategic purpose other than just to enjoy this country that looked beautiful. Bryan framed his thought process similarly, saying, At that point, I didn’t even know what I wanted to do as a career. I was still discerning all that, and I just thought, “This is something that seems really amazing, and this is, I think, what you should do during college.” They were attracted by fun experiences and vivid descriptions, as well as driven by the pursuit of social status. However, the distinction they found value in, as evidenced by their narratives, was not related directly to social mobility or career advancement, but rather to their immediate status as students and the desire to do something everybody did, as well as their desire for distinction compared to their families or home communities. It was a past or current orientation, not a future one. Deploying resources In further evidence of an orientation to the present (at the time of study abroad) rather than the future, students repeatedly referenced the cultural perception that studying abroad in college is the only chance an individual will ever have to be young and carefree in another country, which intersects with both the study abroad employability and Grand Tour narratives. For example, Mia talked about trying to convince her cousin to study abroad several years after 122 she did. She told him “If you get the chance to do it, you need to do it because this is the chance you get to go and do something like this. You don’t have responsibilities yet.” This attitude echoes the narratives of youthful tourists in Desforges’s (2000) study, who worried that if they didn’t travel in their youth, they would feel they had missed out later in life. The impulse to maximize this opportunity makes sense in the context of participants’ previous experiences. The participants in my study were of modest backgrounds, and for most, studying abroad was their first opportunity to spend extended time outside the United States. Their previous international travel experience was limited to family vacations in nearby destinations like Canada or the Caribbean or visits to extended family in other countries. However, the post-collegiate lives of my interviewees refute the idea that study abroad is the only chance they would have to travel or spend time outside the United States. Every one of my participants has had opportunities to travel internationally since their study abroad experience, and for some the additional length of time abroad has been significant. Bryan and Debby participated in organized post-graduate programs through the U.S. government. Erica earned two graduate degrees abroad. Canelo and Amy have lived as independent adults in their study abroad host countries. Drew has led his own students on trips abroad as a high school teacher, while Rose participated in a short-term study abroad program in the Dominican Republic while earning her master’s degree. Mia has prioritized opportunities to travel around the world, not just to visit her family in Mexico, with her husband and child. She even noted laughingly but with pride that her child has traveled more in the first few years of life than Mia did in the first 20 years of hers. The opportunity to study abroad is limited, by definition, to the years when individuals are enrolled in formal schooling. However, the participants in my study narrated their education 123 abroad experiences in ways that demonstrate they closely associate the experience with travel and living daily life abroad, something they have all done to varying degrees as adults. Their lives have disproved that the only time for such activities was when they were young. To be sure, both travel and living abroad as an adult are different from studying abroad, and individuals may intuitively realize that even as their narratives conflate the ideas. In addition, travel or living abroad as an adult may involve a host of additional complications like accommodating partners, caregiving responsibilities, work schedules, health concerns, or other adult realities these participants did not report having as college students, making study abroad the most carefree opportunity for them to experience another culture. The participants in this study believe money is a primary barrier to studying abroad, one that could have stopped them except for the deus ex machina of federal financial aid and scholarships. The ability to use financial aid and scholarships to travel is, again, limited to the time of enrollment in school. Participants in my study talked about believing study abroad was too expensive for them. For example, Rose talked about how she thought about study abroad before college, saying “The whole concept of being a foreign exchange student always intrigued me. It was something, though, that at the time, I never even thought was a possibility. Number one, finances, for sure.” Drew also believed only wealthy students could study abroad, noting his reaction when his first-year roommate did so. Bryan struggled with the additional loans needed for his program, and Debby’s study abroad was only possible because of her mother’s life insurance payout. Financial barriers are frequently cited to explain why study abroad participants primarily comprise wealthier students (e.g., de Jong et al., 2010; Lingo, 2019; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012), despite the availability of scholarships and financial aid for use on study abroad (Bell et al., 2022; Whatley & Clayton, 2020). My participants were willing to invest their 124 time, energy, and money into studying abroad, but they had to have the money to invest in the first place. At the time of participation in study abroad, these students may very well have not been able to imagine a future in which they would have the funds for another trip abroad. They did not come from backgrounds or communities where international travel was common, and their families did not model investing in travel or intercultural experiences. Even in their college communities, the cultures from which they took the message that they needed to study abroad to fit in, models for travel or living abroad outside of education abroad were scarce. Erica, for instance, recalled visiting her campus career center after returning from Ireland to talk about ways she could go abroad again after graduation and earn money. The only suggestion they could offer her was to become an au pair, an idea Erica found both unappealing and vaguely offensive. Debby was completely unaware of the Fulbright Program until an advisor on campus chased her down and explained that deferring law school for a year to take advantage of this prestigious and fully funded opportunity would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Courtois (2019) argued that students with lower economic, social, and cultural capital are more likely to adhere to traditional learned academic norms while their more privileged peers accumulate greater capital through experience and socialization, which increases their employability. Debby’s reluctance to defer law school is an example of this adherence to traditional norms. She held to an established belief that her education needed to continue immediately so she could get a good job and support herself as an adult. She had bought in to the narrative that the achievement of social mobility was her individual responsibility (Brooks, 2008), and outside the justification of formal education, living abroad seemed like a waste of time. Even after being convinced otherwise by her campus advisor and spending a year as a 125 Fulbright teaching assistant, Debby still felt time abroad was not real life and declined an extension, citing the need to return home and start her career. These attitudes made sense at the time students were experiencing them. They came from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, and for the most part they had not yet begun independent adult lives with full-time jobs and salaries. They could not know what the future held for them. What is interesting is these individuals still repeat this discourse 20 years later, when they are self-supporting adults who have all found ways to travel abroad again. They use the idea of travel and exploration to narrate their study abroad, but they do not connect it with their post-study abroad life experiences. Being consumers Students abroad are often positioned as uncritical consumers of other spaces and cultures, living in fancy hotels, overindulging in nightlife, and running roughshod over local environments, a manifestation of their Grand Tour expectations or colonialist attitudes (e.g., Bolen, 2001; Engle & Engle, 2002; Ogden, 2007). By and large, students in this study did not show evidence of this behavior in their narratives. Most of the students lived in homestays or with local students, and while several did reminisce about drinking and hanging out, such as when Debby took the train all around Europe to meet up with friends from home or Bryan recalled drinking beers in Bangkok with his classmates, such behavior was not the primary focus of their memories or representations. Instead, the consumption present in these narratives was more matter of fact. The students were indeed consumers, in the sense they were paying guests in homestays and housing and engaged in tourist activities outside of classes. The culture of study abroad wants to pretend homestay relationships should always be warm and familial, and meaningful opportunities for 126 language learning and cultural exchange will arise just from their very nature (Doerr, 2013). Warm relationships and meaningful opportunities can exist, but they do so in the context of an economic, transactional relationship. Canelo’s host family seems to have enjoyed having her around, but they also needed the money she brought with her. When Drew told the story of the two interactions he had with his host mother, the woman who owned the apartment where he stayed, he did so with good humor though a slight sense of disappointment. He recognized he and this woman did not actually owe each other anything beyond the renter/landlord relationship. He simply moved on. The individuals in my study did not apologize for being consumers or tourists, in fact, they hardly problematized it. Bryan expressed some regret about how his faculty-led group lived in a tourist bubble during their time in Thailand and Laos, and that experience helped him prioritize engagement with local communities when he later joined the Peace Corps. Overall, the students were not especially conspicuous about their consumption, perhaps because they were not used to being conspicuous consumers. Students engaged in tourist activities, and those activities were some of the most memorable and meaningful experiences they had while studying abroad. Despite not being the prototypical wealthy Grand Tour-ists, they enjoyed taking advantage of what their host locations offered them in the way of leisure and entertainment. They went to the beach, drank in pubs, traveled by train, and had fun. They cared about doing well in their classes but did not spend all their time in deep, serious thought. The Grand Tour narrative positions study abroad as a completely leisurely experience, while the employability narrative positions study abroad as an exclusively serious experience. These participants found a middle ground where they were both learners and consumers, adding nuance to the existing cultural narratives of education abroad. 127 Exploring in Relation to Cultural Narratives Students in this study were deeply aware of the privilege they had in studying abroad, but largely in comparison to others in their lives at home. They expressed their parents, families, friends, and local communities did not have these kinds of experiences, and they felt the weight of representing their communities abroad and making the most of opportunities on behalf of those who could not have them. They did not express feelings of privilege over their host countries or communities, as might be expected from a Grand Tour perspective. Five of the students studied in Global North European countries (i.e., Ireland, Italy, Spain (2), Switzerland). They appreciated their host communities but uncritically assumed they were welcome in them. Students who studied in these countries approached them largely as equal to their U.S. homes. Three students studied in countries that were more developing in the early 21st century (i.e., Chile, Costa Rica, Thailand & Laos). These students acknowledged the privilege of being there and reflected on unequal power dynamics at the level of the nation-state but did not critically examine the smaller-scale power dynamics of their presence. For example, Canelo had many Chilean friends through her host sister and university. She acknowledged some of the inequities between herself and other U.S. students in Chile and their hosts, including that while ostensibly Chilean students were welcome to study at her university in the United States in a reciprocal exchange, in practice almost none did because of the large disparity in costs. Yet when asked if this impacted her relationships with the Chilean students, Canelo believed it did not. She said, We were all students. We all wanted to drink beer, hang out, go party, and dance. Money didn’t come up back then. It didn’t impact what we did or how we spent our time or 128 who we hung out with. I know a lot more now post-study abroad, but at the time it wasn't a thing. They were all just students and Canelo herself was not particularly wealthy, so she did not see wealth disparity as an issue in her personal relationships. At the same time, Canelo was someone who reflected a lot on the large-scale imbalances between the United States and Chile in the political and economic spheres. She was infuriated by the inequities she saw on that larger scale and by U.S. interventions in politics and culture, and she came to understand the very real impacts of U.S. hegemony on other countries. Yet she did not recognize any power imbalances in her personal relationships or her privilege in being able to use Chile as a backdrop for her personal revelations. Students seek experiences different from the everyday in order to find fulfillment (Desforges, 2000), however my respondents did not critically problematize whether they were welcome or wanted in their host countries. Crossing borders is only easy for those with socioeconomic privilege, and being a U.S. college student, even one of lower-socioeconomic status in the United States, confers relative privilege when compared with much of the rest of the world. The privilege of study abroad for U.S. students is gained at least in part through their nationality, institutionalized in their passport, which offers them the freedom to cross many, if not most, international borders with ease as tourists and learners (Chakravarty et al., 2020). Students in my study did not show evidence of critical analysis, during or since their study abroad, of the colonialist undertones of the study abroad experience. Debby, for example, was very content not to get to know any Swiss or French people during her time in Geneva. She said, 129 My goal was to not be a rude American. My goal was to be a good representative of my country and to have fun and see things and learn while I was there. I didn’t care at all about meeting Swiss people or French people. The value of the study abroad experience in her eyes was exclusively made through what she did: the opportunities she took advantage of, where she traveled, choices she made. Her casual disregard for the local faculty and quality of education from the less elite state school that sponsored her study abroad program is matched by her dismissal of the local population. Debby had a laudable goal in not being “a rude American.” But she had no real interest in meeting or learning about Swiss or French people or living daily life in Geneva. She wanted independent adventure and exploration, surface-level engagement that protected her from any type of vulnerability, a sympathetic though not unproblematic desire given the emotional and physical upheaval of her life back home. The European continent played host and playground to Debby as she traveled around to meet friends from home in their study abroad locations while attempting to work through some of her personal challenges. Images of study and travel abroad often seen in popular culture reflect similar themes that perpetuate the Grand Tour narrative. Such images often depict young White women finding themselves through a sojourn abroad (Barbour, 2012; Hankin, 2021). They face dangers from outside sources, like in the movie Taken, which Rose referenced when talking about her risky travel decisions, or run from problems at home in hopes of finding solace abroad, like in Eat, Pray, Love, a film Rose referenced at another point in her narrative. Birindelli’s (2020) concept of “Florence without Florentines” (p. 196), or a space frozen in time in popular imagination as a backdrop for personal development, is evident in Debby’s narrative and her lack of interest in the people who already occupied the spaces she sought to use. Yet in situations of desperation, 130 students were, if not happy, at least willing to risk engaging with and trusting host country nationals. When they needed directions or a ride or did not understand the language, they turned to the kindness of strangers, despite their misgivings and risks, real and exaggerated. These are chances one takes for daring to explore. The pursuit of adventure on some level always involves the unknown, venturing into new territory without knowing an outcome ahead of time. Eventually, however, adventures end, either with the adventurer returning home or with the unknown becoming familiar. This was true for the students in my study, who represented their time abroad as a quest for novelty, with travel and risk-taking playing a role in that liminal space and time before their real life began, reflecting the nature of the historical Grand Tour as a time of leisure before adulthood. In the next section, I turn to the ways the students also represent their study abroad as a time of growing up, where they practiced navigating daily life and personal development, and how this theme relates to the Grand Tour and study abroad employability narratives. Becoming in Relation to Cultural Narratives In this section, I connect the theme of Becoming, with its composite parts of navigating daily life and learning and growing as a person, with larger cultural narratives about education abroad. The Grand Tour narrative situates study abroad as an academically unserious journey of self-discovery. Meanwhile, the study abroad employability narrative positions the experience as one of capital acquisition and growth toward greater neoliberal subjectivity. When students used phrases like ‘studying abroad changed my life” (Erica) or “I was a different person abroad” (Rose) they were verbalizing autobiographical turning points (Bruner, 2002). As meaningful and true as such statements might be to these respondents, they are also well-worn clichés in the cultural perception of study abroad, and my interviewees knew it when 131 they said such things. Erica jokingly referred to herself as “that girl” who studied abroad, because upon return she wanted to show everyone she was worldly and cultured by using European words like mobile for her personal communication device, instead of the more common U.S. term cell phone. Participants recognized that rarely did anyone really want to hear about their experience in-depth, at-length, or long after (Kortegast & Boisfontaine, 2015). Yet they earnestly felt there had been some change in their identity after studying abroad, primarily occurring through the immersion, social, and touristic experiences they had, not the academic coursework. The Grand Tour narrative positions study abroad as an academically unserious endeavor in which participants passively absorb culture while having a luxurious sojourn through Western Europe. Gore (2005) found this attitude present among faculty at U.S. higher education institutions, who believed education abroad was unserious and unnecessary. The timing of the publication of Gore’s (2005) research coincides with the study abroad experiences of my participants. Yet none of my participants reported experiencing negative perceptions of education abroad on their home campuses. The messages my participants took from their faculty and colleges supported and promoted education abroad, often as an integral part of their institutional identity. My participants represent but a tiny sampling of the institutions of higher education in the United States, or even of just four-year, relatively selective colleges and universities in the country, but in those spaces faculty or institutional devaluation of study abroad was either not present or not recognized by the students who participated in my study, despite Gore’s (2005) contemporaneous findings. Not only did they not report encountering negative perceptions on their campuses, but participants in my study actively refuted the idea that academics were not important to their 132 study abroad experience. As noted earlier, many discussed how they would not have participated if they had not been able to earn the necessary credits to make progress toward graduation. However, such protestations do not necessarily mean the endeavor was academically motivated or driven by the academic quality of their study abroad programs. Some students, such as Drew and Bryan, were motivated by the chance to fulfill credits they needed for specific graduation requirements, which made the investment seem worthwhile. But the underlying message of the students’ emphasis on staying on track for graduation is that the fulfillment of requirements was the most important thing, not the quality of the academic experience. As long as their home university would accept the credits, the students were happy. When concerns about quality were voiced, it was not an insurmountable obstacle, as in Debby’s case. Debby was dismissive of the quality of the courses she took in Switzerland. She felt the classes offered by the U.S. regional public university sponsoring her program were inferior to the classes she could take at home. Her university reinforced, or perhaps created this perception by requiring her to request extra work in order to count the courses toward her major. Despite this perceived inferiority, the home university and Debby herself seemed to believe the added value of being abroad compensated for what they saw as lower-quality coursework. Though the demeaning attitude Gore (2005) identified about education abroad was not explicitly stated or recognized by the student, or possibly even by the faculty or institution, it was still present in Debby’s experience. The secondary importance of the academic experience is reflected again in the challenges students had recalling their coursework from education abroad. They recalled transformative moments of realization when something became clear to them, sometimes in or associated with a class, or when they experienced a mindset or perspective shift, but they could not recall much of 133 the actual content of the classes they took. Participants could recall many of the details of daily life, navigating their new locations, travel episodes, and moments of personal growth, demonstrating the value they place on those experiences, while the academic details have faded with the passing of time. The novelty of those non-academic activities made them memorable. For some students study abroad was their first taste of independence and responsibility, while for all of them it was a new experience of daily life in a new place. The classroom experience, however, was not new or adventurous, and therefore not worth remembering. The academic details are lost to time and memory. The credits transferred, and that is what mattered. The students’ attitude toward the academic experience reflects the neoliberal social imaginary of study abroad, with its emphasis on collecting experiences for employability, with the details of and learning derived from those experiences being of secondary value. Though they had varied individual reasons for selecting the programs they did, participants made their choices from within the neoliberal social imaginary of study abroad in which any experience is positioned as beneficial, regardless of the location, duration, or topic of study. Barkin (2018) summarized that positioning as the binary discourse of going, underneath which runs a core belief that “travel abroad is synonymous with (experiential) education, and more fundamentally that travel is itself—before practice and pedagogy are even considered—educative” (p. 301). Furthermore, this attitude reflects the participants’ understanding and deployment of narrative capital. The academic details carry less value in the marketplace of stories, so they focus on the fun, interesting, or dangerous narratives to maximize the capital gained from their experience abroad. The main exception to this mindset toward the academic experience is those students who sought to improve their second language skills while studying abroad. That learning outcome 134 was important to them, and they all identified they achieved it to a degree with which they were satisfied. However, in their narratives they placed the primary site of language learning outside the academic classroom experience. Canelo, for instance, identified traveling throughout Chile, hanging out with her Chilean host sister, and having a Chilean boyfriend as accelerators of her Spanish learning. Amy credited living with Italian roommates for helping her language skills evolve, and Drew discussed how grocery shopping in Spain helped him improve his vocabulary recall. Students do not arrive at these conclusions in a vacuum. Messages from their universities and the broader culture influenced how they perceived language learning on study abroad. The students’ comments reflect the discourse of immersion that positions study abroad as a better learning experience than a traditional classroom setting (Doerr, 2013). This discourse is further manifested through experiential learning requirements, such as Drew’s program mandated, and pervasive messaging about education abroad from the first year onwards, such as Rose experienced. The discourse of immersion positions simply being present as sufficient for learning (Doerr, 2013) and operates on the premise that learning is guaranteed by virtue of students’ presence around or observation of phenomena that cannot be experienced in their home culture (Pipitone, 2018). For students in my study, the primary quest in education abroad was not academics, but investment, exploration, and personal development through the search for authentic experiences. MacCannell (2013) argued that tourism consumption is characterized by a search for authenticity in hopes of finding a better understanding of the world and the individual’s place within it. For example, both Bryan and Canelo’s searches for authentic experiences in Southeast Asia and South America, respectively, afforded them the opportunity to try new ways of thinking and 135 being in the world. In Southeast Asia, Bryan was able to be more at peace with his identity as a gay man in a culture where he felt more accepted than he did at home. In Chile, Canelo discovered she appreciated a slower and more relaxed pace of life that valued people and experiences over competition and accomplishments. For both students, they had to get out of their home cultures to experience these different mindsets. Students in this study perceived their experiences and learning to be tied to their host countries, or for those in Europe, to the continent more broadly through their independent travel. They connected subsequent post-graduate travel experiences throughout the world to the increased confidence and practical knowledge of travel they developed by studying abroad. Doerr (2012) explored how a discourse of adventure in study abroad governed students’ desires about how to learn through immersion on study abroad and positioned global competence as the ultimate goal, a reflection of the study abroad employability narrative. Participants in my study reflected an adventurer mindset in their narratives, but they did not ascribe meaning to the idea of global competence. They considered themselves more knowledgeable about their host countries and more knowledgeable about travel but did not more broadly ascribe themselves global competence or global citizenship. As students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, most did not envision themselves living internationalized lives after graduation. Most expected to return to the United States and continue to live their lives, maybe with some upward social mobility borne of higher education. They identified with the discourse of adventure, in which exploration was a tool for personal growth and development, but they did not relate to the second aspect in which global competence was the desired outcome (Doerr, 2012). This reaction provides nuance to the study abroad employability narrative and to the rhetoric of colonialism in student attitudes abroad. 136 Chapter Summary In the preceding chapter, I discussed the ways the education abroad narratives in this study reflect and nuance existing cultural narratives of study abroad. Students embraced certain aspects of these cultural narratives, accepting with equanimity their roles as tourists and consumers and espousing a belief that youth is the only time they would be able to travel, even though their lives have disproven that sentiment. While they were adamant that earning credit toward graduation was vital for their participation in study abroad, they did not prioritize specific academic experiences, instead learning from navigating daily life and connecting classroom lessons to outside experiences. Though they may have been thoughtless or uncritical at times, they did not demonstrate evidence of significant colonialist attitudes of superiority over their host countries. These students did not undertake study abroad with a strategic future-oriented goal, as the study abroad employability narrative would suggest. Their goals were more immediate, like fitting in with their college peers or completing graduation requirements in good time. A study abroad experience is widely accepted as a time of self-development, a suspended period when attention to academics can be temporarily jettisoned while students engage in leisurely pursuits (the Grand Tour narrative) and accumulate non-academic capital in pursuit of distinction (the study abroad employability narrative). Due to the necessary capital investment, these types of capital-building experiences have traditionally been the province of more privileged students. The students in my study, being of lower-socioeconomic status, narrated their experiences in ways that both reflected and refuted aspects of these broader cultural narratives, ultimately contributing to more nuanced perspectives and the possibility of new cultural stories and interpretations. 137 CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS In this qualitative study, I explored the ways individuals from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds who studied abroad remember and represent their experiences after several years have passed. I further examined how their narratives of their study abroad experiences illuminate and nuance existing cultural narratives of education abroad. The stories of these students are highly individual and contextual, but common themes emerged as I analyzed the ways they chose to present their narratives and the meanings and value they drew from their study abroad experiences. The previous chapters have laid out the framework, participants, and findings of this study. In this final chapter, I begin by summarizing the study design and data collection process before moving on to discuss the findings in the context of their contributions to the literature on study abroad, paying particular attention to the way this study complicates knowledge about commonly accepted discourses in study abroad and the unique contribution of the study’s retrospective nature. I explore the implications and recommendations that emerged from these findings for colleges and universities and international educators. Finally, I conclude by acknowledging limitations and suggesting possible future directions for research arising from this study. Summary of Study Design and Findings This study examined the education abroad experiences of individuals of lower- socioeconomic status who participated in study abroad in the early 21st century, and their reflections on the experience many years later. To qualify for this study, individuals had to have participated in a study abroad program outside the United States for at least eight weeks between the years of 1999 and 2009, as part of their pursuit of an undergraduate degree from a U.S. 138 college or university. In addition, individuals selected for this study indicated at least one marker of lower-socioeconomic status background, including being a first-generation college student, receiving a Pell Grant or other need-based financial aid or grants during college, or being eligible for free/reduced school lunch or other federal or state benefits during childhood. Beyond these qualifications, individuals were drawn from a range of higher education institution types, majors, home communities, study abroad destinations, program types, and current life experiences. Participants were solicited through an email to a listserv of professionals working in international education, who were asked to share the study with relevant graduates, as well as through social media promotion on my personal accounts, amplified by sharing from connections. Ultimately, I conducted two interviews with each of eight participants. Interviews were narrative-inspired conversations between participant and researcher that took place over videoconference. After the second interview with each participant, the recordings were professionally transcribed and reviewed for accuracy before being sent to the participants for review or feedback if desired. Beginning with transcript review, I listened to each interview recording at least twice to establish a deep familiarity with the stories of each participant. From the transcripts and recordings, I developed lengthy narrative portraits of each participant, re-storying our conversations into narratives rich in extraneous detail and faithful to the meandering nature of the interpersonal interactions that created them. Following this, I distilled these lengthy portraits into the more manageable but still detail-rich profiles found in Appendix F. With this strong grasp on the full narrative of each participant’s experience, I returned to the transcripts and inductively coded each one for themes related to how the individuals remembered and shared their education abroad experiences. After two rounds of iterative thematic coding, I conducted a 139 further round of coding to identify ways the emerging themes related to existing cultural narratives of education abroad. In answer to the first research question “How do individuals of lower-socioeconomic status remember (in the past) and represent (currently) their education abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed?” I found three themes emerging from the participants’ narratives: Investing, Exploring, and Becoming. The individuals in this study remember their experience as an investment. They use the language of economics to justify their participation in both past (e.g., convincing their families to let them go) and current contexts (e.g., talking to me). They accept the consumer nature of their experiences without significant problematization and without seeing a conflict between tourist and academic learning experiences. Further, they prioritized exploration in both living and talking about the study abroad experience. They framed their experience as an adventure and positioned themselves as bold adventurers, often in contrast to how they would behave at home. They strongly associate the study abroad experience with travel, both as a whole experience (“traveling for a semester”) and in showcasing individual travel as a primary value within their experience. They take pride in their independence, including taking necessary risks or acting with considered recklessness in pursuit of their travel goals. Finally, these participants focused more on their education abroad experience as a time of personal growth and development than academic achievement. They struggled to recall details of their classwork but remembered transformative moments or profound connections between something they experienced outside of class and what they learned in the classroom. They also focused on navigating the day-to-day experience of independence in a new context. The 140 combination of these quotidian activities with transformative moments of learning about themselves or the world contributed to feelings of growing up and becoming more adult. In the second research question, I asked “How do the stories of these students intersect with previously identified cultural narratives of education abroad?” I focused on two prominent existing narratives, the Grand Tour narrative and the study abroad employability narrative. Findings suggest the experiences of these students both reflect and complicate these narratives. The Grand Tour narrative of study abroad suggests study abroad is a leisurely, desultory activity devoid of academic merit, a chance to party for a semester in a European destination (Gore, 2005). Findings from this study show students were very concerned about making academic progress toward graduation and took their coursework seriously with that goal in mind. The students also did not recognize or report negative academic perceptions of study abroad on their home campuses. On the contrary, they found their colleges and universities deeply supportive of the endeavor. They also experienced powerful moments of learning where they connected classroom conversations or concepts to real life experiences. However, their strongest memories from education abroad were related to travel and exploration, fun and touristic experiences which the Grand Tour narrative expects them to have but academia decries (Gore, 2005). Their uncritical attitudes about these travel and tourist experiences reflect Grand Tour and colonialist assumptions about their welcome in these host locations. They acknowledged their privilege but did not critically interrogate it. The study abroad employability narrative suggests students must have experiences like study abroad in order to achieve distinction in the labor market. The cultural narrative further suggests students should and do choose to study abroad with strategic aims in mind. However, 141 participants in this study did not demonstrate such a future orientation. They studied abroad to fit in with other students and demonstrate their full membership in the college culture, or to achieve distinction and with it, admiration, in their home communities. Students reflected the overarching neoliberal mindset of the study abroad employability narrative through a scarcity discourse where they framed study abroad as the only time a person could travel and live abroad. They did not want to miss out on the opportunity or take less than full advantage of it. While they mirror this discourse in their expressions, their lives show each one of them has taken advantage of additional international opportunities in the years since they studied abroad. They could not know at the time what the future held for them, but that they do not make this connection on reflection years later demonstrates the pervasiveness of the neoliberal social imaginary of study abroad. Contributions to the Literature This study illuminates aspects of study abroad that have previously not been well- represented in the literature. Much previous research centers around the intent of underrepresented students, including students of color and those of lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, to study abroad (e.g., Lingo, 2019; Salisbury et al., 2009; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012; Stroud, 2015; Whatley, 2018) but does not follow up on the experiences of those who overcome barriers to achieve participation. The students in this study were split between those who intended or hoped to study abroad from before or early in their college careers (i.e., Amy, Erica, Rose) and those who did not intend to study abroad until some change in their knowledge or circumstances made it seem possible and desirable (i.e., Bryan, Canelo, Debby, Drew, Mia). This study goes beyond intention to explore the experiences and narratives of those who followed through on participating in education abroad. 142 This study takes a retrospective view that illuminates the meanings such students make of their study abroad experiences over the course of their early to middle adult lives. Through its retrospective nature, this study allows participants to put their education abroad experience in a much broader context than they could during or immediately after the fact. In doing so, the study demonstrates the importance of research about the value of education abroad over the course of the lifespan, to illustrate the meaning and capital students of lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds could be missing out on by not intending to study abroad or not moving from intent to participation. My research situates study abroad as part of a full and ongoing life, asking individuals to pause in the midst of their busy middle-aged and middle-class lives to reflect on a relatively small period of time long ago. In doing so, participants (re)make meaning of the experience from a new perspective, with the benefits of hindsight and greater maturity. The full complexity of an event is not always apparent in real time. Looking backwards allows participants to reinterpret and connect their long-ago experiences to their present understandings. Their lived experience was situated in its own cultural, social, political, and temporal context, and so are their narratives recreated in a new context each time they are told. This retrospective study provides a new snapshot of the meaning that study abroad experiences currently hold for these individuals, a snapshot of a time often ignored. What meaning does a fun, unusual experience from the past have in the day-to-day busyness of adulthood? These are not the reflections of students a few months returned, or of retirees or elders taking leisurely stock of their lives. These stories express insights about the ways a valued experience holds meaning even when it seems to have less relevance to the current stage of life. 143 Wong (2015) cited Dewey’s (1936) concept of the continuity of experience as important for understanding the immediate or delayed impacts of a study abroad experience. As described by Wong (2015), this concept emphasizes that experiences that stand out from the everyday, like study abroad, are likely to have a greater impact on subsequent experiences, whether in the short or long-term. The narratives of the students in this study support this view, as they demonstrate continued and evolving meaning-making as they identified and reflected on linkages between their study abroad experiences and their subsequent adult lives. The retrospective nature of this study also highlights how these graduates describe changes in their interpretations and narratives as they reflect on them throughout the course of their lives. Participants shared how their memories of study abroad had faded or become intermingled with memories of other things they had done, such as when Debby struggled to distinguish which trips she had taken as a student and which places she had visited as a post- graduate Fulbright teaching assistant. Bryan shared how important it was immediately after his return to hear his parents talk proudly about his experience in Thailand and to feel validated in his belief that he was achieving distinction. However, after his Peace Corps experience and now in his successful career, such distinction matters to him far less. Participants also shared how the ways they talk about or demonstrate their education abroad experiences have changed over the years. Erica admitted self-deprecatingly that she used to be what she considers a stereotypical study abroad returnee who wants everyone to know it, so she would pepper her vocabulary with Irish or European terms in a way she now deems, in current (U.S.) slang, “so cringe.” Debby returned from Switzerland and drove around town in her car with a Swiss flag bumper sticker, a campus status symbol. She does not do that anymore, though she still uses a Geneva coffee mug sometimes. These former students have evolved their 144 displays of cosmopolitan capital over time, from the overt and showy to more polished or subtle middle-class displays, like giving travel advice to friends or coworkers going on vacation or keeping a framed photo on an office desk. Existing scholarship that explores student experiences abroad tends to focus on the time immediately after return and the ability of students to articulate meaning in the short-term (Twombly et al., 2012). An exception to the model of existing scholarship that prioritizes immediate meaning-making is Paige et al.’s (2009) study which asked former study abroad participants to reflect retrospectively on their experiences, recognizing the impact of the experience may be latent or change over the course of years. The current study provides nuance to Paige et al.’s (2009) findings that over 50% of the thousands of former participants they surveyed many years later found their study abroad experience to be influential to their personal development. The narratives shared here give rich detail as to the various ways the respondents in my study found the experience influential. This study also contributes to the literature on the role of capital in education abroad. Existing research focuses on capital as an input in the study abroad experience, exploring how capital influences a student’s intent or likelihood to study abroad (e.g., Lingo, 2019; Salisbury et al., 2009; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012). Narratives in this study suggest a different role for capital in the experiences of students of lower-socioeconomic status who choose to study abroad. In this study, when participants talked about capital, it was framed as something they acquired through studying abroad. As discussed in Chapter 4, this capital was instrumental in helping participants both fit in to their campus culture and stand out from their home communities. Drew explicitly lamented he did not feel his two-month experience in Spain built as much capital as a longer experience would have. Though Bryan did not directly use the word capital, he talked about the 145 distinction his study abroad experience afforded him when his family would talk about him to others in their community. And yet, students did not explicitly tie their choice to study abroad to the idea of social mobility or strategic positioning. For example, Mia said, “I didn’t go because I wanted some professional development…I didn’t have any strategic purpose other than just to enjoy this country that looked beautiful.” This finding aligns with existing literature that calls into question the degree to which students pursue international study to achieve higher status (Prazeres, 2017; Trower & Lehmann, 2017; Waters et al., 2011). The students in this study did not express motivations to move into new social spheres or to outdo their peers. Instead, they saw study abroad as a way to fit in with other students at their colleges and universities. When they sought distinction, it was in comparison to their home communities and was not with the goal of leaving them behind, but the desire to be admired by individuals whose opinions they valued (Engel & Gibson, 2020). This study illuminates some of the limits of capital as a theoretical framework, notably its disregard for individual agency and its anticipation of the perpetual reproduction of existing social structures. Like narrative, capital has power, but it is not infallible or unchangeable. The students of lower-socioeconomic status in this study found ways to access the traditionally elite experience of education abroad, even if they did not do so with strategic aims. They created their own narratives about the experience and its value. These students were not beholden to existing cultural narratives about who gets to engage in study abroad, perhaps because this was not the first time they subverted expectations. They studied abroad because they went to college, they went to college because they succeeded in high school. At each step, they were able to acquire and turn to their advantage some resource they 146 might not ordinarily be expected to have. For example, Debby’s mother highly valued education and took steps, like purchasing life insurance, to ensure that her daughter could access it even when she was no longer around. Bryan’s talent and potential was recognized by teachers and community leaders who gave him opportunities for leadership and achievement that helped him succeed. Despite the grim outlook on social mobility espoused by traditional theories of capital, these students were able to increasingly access opportunities like study abroad that might have been previously out of reach, challenging existing social structures and cultural narratives. Even more importantly, they were able to do so with joy and enthusiasm, not weighed down by the harsh seriousness of capital. Implications for Practice This study has provided further evidence that students continue to make meaning of their education abroad experiences well into adulthood. This project explored the experiences of students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds nearly 20 years later. These students participated in education abroad during the early years of the 21st century, a decade in which participation nearly doubled and which coincided with increasing efforts to diversify and make study abroad more accessible. The exploration of how these individuals continue to remember and represent their education abroad today, as well as how their resulting narratives provide nuance to existing cultural narratives, has implications for higher education institutions broadly and for international educators in particular. Colleges and Universities This study has demonstrated the education abroad experience continues to hold meaning for individuals after they return, though its relevance may wax and wane through the years. Students will make meaning with or without formal interventions, but lack of intervention does 147 not guarantee the meaning they make will be free from influence (Kortegast & Boisfontaine, 2015). Meaning is made under the influence of the cultural narratives to which members of a society have access. Higher education institutions and the faculty, staff, and students within them should be mindful of how they reinforce existing cultural narratives of education abroad, even with the intention to counter them. Repetition is how cultural narratives and myths are reinforced, making them seem more natural, acceptable, and irrefutable (Schwarz et al., 2016). For college students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, campus representations of study abroad may be the first they encounter. Such representations might also be the only ones that challenge negative or unrelatable stereotypes of study abroad found in the media or broader cultural discourse. If colleges and universities believe study abroad has valuable educational meaning, they need to counter the cultural narrative of the Grand Tour, not play into it with rhetoric and imagery reminiscent of landmarks and leisure travel (Bishop, 2013; Hankin, 2021; Miller-Idriss et al., 2019). In a similar vein, campuses should be careful not to reduce the education abroad experience to the neoliberal mobility imperative by using rhetoric that incites panic about employability or competitiveness or trivializes study abroad into a line on a resume. When it comes to students of lower-socioeconomic status, campuses have a responsibility to be thoughtful about the messages they send about education abroad. The individuals in my study did not have family or close friends (before college) who studied abroad, and their understandings of study abroad came from cultural narratives or campus attitudes. They believed study abroad was expensive and only for wealthy students. They reiterated the narrative that college was the only time they would be able to travel or live abroad. They worried about 148 delaying progress toward graduation. These are all parts of the Grand Tour and neoliberal study abroad employability narratives. Campus was the place where they got different messages, but even the campus messaging they navigated reinforced these cultural narratives in some ways. Their colleges and universities could provide little insight on other models of cross-cultural experience, such as when Erica asked the career center for help finding an international job and they could only suggest she be an au pair. The academic snobbery about education abroad that was so well-detailed in Gore’s (2005) study was present on Debby’s campus in less explicit, more insidious ways, positioning the classes abroad as inferior to the courses she could take on campus, though the overall study abroad experience was still considered valuable. A campus culture of study abroad was instrumental in making such experiences possible for these students of lower-socioeconomic status. However, the findings in this study also point to the importance of not essentializing a study abroad experience as the only opportunity a person will have to spend time abroad. A campus culture that only values or encourages the study abroad model of international engagement fails to teach students about the true range of international opportunities throughout the life span and their educative power. Opportunities for cross-cultural experiences after graduation as well as other opportunities like domestic cross- cultural activities and non-credit bearing international experiences should be promoted as valuable. The experiences of the participants in this study show that while study abroad offices and individual faculty may be forwarding positive cultural messages about education abroad, it is important the whole campus be aligned on the value of international engagement. 149 International Educators The meanings students make of their study abroad can differ from what international educators think or hope they take from the experience. Concerns about student learning in areas such as intercultural competence, career preparation, and academic content have led to many attempts to intervene before, during, and after study abroad programs (Vande Berg et al., 2012). Efforts to encourage students to go beyond superficial meaning-making can increase their narrative capital to help refute or nuance existing cultural narratives like the Grand Tour. However, if not done carefully, interventions can also reinforce colonialist or elitist attitudes or subjugate student experiences abroad to the grim and joyless employability narrative. The students in this study reported largely positive memories of their experiences abroad. They closely associated their study abroad experiences with travel, both framing the entire experience as an adventure and recalling and narrating individual independent travel opportunities. They unproblematically relished these experiences and found lasting meaning in their identity as travelers. This joy and meaning butts up against the field of study abroad, where for many years faculty and professional international educators, myself included, have sought to separate study abroad from simple travel and tourism, in part to refute the Grand Tour narrative and appeal to a broader range of students, including those of lower-socioeconomic status who are assumed to want or need a more serious academic or professional experience to make the investment worthwhile. What does it mean, then, that for the students of lower-socioeconomic status in this study the framework of academic investment was important to motivate them to go abroad and garner support from their families, but once they made that decision, their far more vivid, long-lasting, and frequently shared experiences were related to travel and consumer experiences? Students’ 150 most pressing academic goal was to make progress toward their degree, not to have a particular type of academic experience or learn about a specific topic. The academic experience was not a primary motivator or memory for them, but rather something they needed to ensure others would support them. In many ways, they did exactly what we in the field of study abroad disdain. They paid lip-service to academic value while taking advantage of every chance to travel or have adventures outside of class. And yet, their genuine enthusiasm, their joy when remembering and recounting these experiences and what they meant to them as young people, to their identity and growth and sense of self, to the teenager from the Rust Belt who, as Bryan put it, “didn’t have any of this on my bingo card for life” makes it difficult for me, though steeped in the serious, educative discourse of study abroad administration for nearly 20 years, to feel anything but happy for them. Of course, my own positionality as their peer, someone who also came from a working- class town and a family of modest means, who also could not believe my luck that I got to walk past Big Ben every time I went to buy a 99p tuna fish sandwich for my lunch, influences my perspective. But nonetheless, from my perspective as an educator, these students’ reflections make me think more deeply about whether there is not a both/and instead of an either/or in the battle between academic seriousness of purpose and enthusiastic pursuit of fun and adventure. Can we allow our students joy even while we try to help them have a rigorous and high-quality academic experience? Can we honor “It was great” even as we encourage deeper reflection and academic and career integration? In this I echo Wong’s (2015) call to take “It was great” seriously and seek ways to better understand what students are trying to say, rather than ascribe 151 meaninglessness or frivolity that belittles their efforts and reinforces conceptions of the Grand Tour or forces students into the grim seriousness of the mobility imperative. The sense of fun and joy with which the students spoke of their experiences abroad highlights but also challenges the grimness of capital as a framework for theory and practice. Theories of capital reduce an experience to the rote and mechanistic cycle of production, accumulation, and investment at the expense of the social, cultural, and human contexts that add richness and complexity to a life. These narratives demonstrate how study abroad broke through the grim cycle to be an experience that brought the students pleasure, both in the moment and in their memories. Studying abroad was an interlude of novelty and exploration, a release, a joyful, youthful adventure, and a valuable capital building experience. The student narratives showcase that while capital has value, both symbolic and economic, it does not fully inform or explain the ongoing meaning they make of their experiences. As international educators, we are socialized to amplify the value and deprioritize the fun in study abroad, to be serious in order to be taken seriously. We have turned the entire education abroad experience into serious work, often ignoring the value of rest, exploration, and downtime and the joy of experiencing something new for its own sake, without constantly trying to turn it to another advantage. This hustle culture attitude is a manifestation of neoliberal ideology masquerading as academic seriousness. The students to whom I spoke interrupted this narrative with their own understanding of study abroad as a time of enjoyment and growth. They found meaning and created value in the experience without succumbing to the frivolousness of the Grand Tour or the joyless cycle of the neoliberal social imaginary. They show a middle path, and one that we as international educators should take to heart. They can learn and have fun. They can remember for their whole lives both 152 transformative moments of growth and silly jokes with their friends. These things matter to them, and they should matter to us. We should take them more seriously. I did not expect this outcome when I began this study. The continued joy and pleasure students took in the experience surprised me, and my desire to embrace it surprised me even more. To be clear, I think many international educators already work hard to meet students where they are and honor their meaning-making even as we try to help them think more deeply. And I am not suggesting that as international educators we resign ourselves to being travel agents or Grand Tour chaperones. But I am suggesting the stories of these lower-socioeconomic status students, who invested their resources in exploring in order to become someone new, should remind us there is a path between the frivolous Grand Tour and the grimly serious employability imperative wherein students can just be exactly what they are – young people exploring the world, having fun, making mistakes, learning, and growing up. Limitations The participants in this study represent but a tiny fraction of the students who studied abroad during the early years of the 21st century, and certainly the world has changed a great deal since then. While I attempted to include people of varying backgrounds and life experiences in this study, race/ethnicity and gender were not a focal point in my analysis. Seven of the eight participants in my study identified as White. Given the small sample size, this tracks relatively closely with representation within education abroad during that time. Between the academic years of 2003/2004 and 2008/2009, the actual time frame in which my eight participants completed their study abroad programs, the average percentage of participants who identified as White was 82.32% (IIE, 2023a), while the percentage of White individuals in my study was 87.5%. The remaining participant in my study was of Mexican American heritage and identified 153 herself as Latina. During the same time frame, an average of 5.65% of study abroad students were Latinx (IIE, 2023a). In addition, men were under-represented in my study compared to their participation in education abroad. During the time under consideration, men comprised an average of 34.83% of study abroad participants (IIE, 2023a), while they only comprised 25% of respondents in my sample. Given the goals of this study, I elected not to prioritize an analysis of the role of race/ethnicity or gender within the study abroad experiences of lower-socioeconomic status students. However, future research centering race/ethnicity, gender, or other identities, as well as their intersectionality, would be a valuable addition to the literature. Participants in this study had to self-select in by completing the initial intake questionnaire and responding to email requests for participation. Those who chose to participate reported largely positive feelings and memories of their experiences abroad, but I feel compelled to consider who responded to the call for participants and who was willing to discuss their education abroad experiences. The inherent structure of narratives creates the possibility that narrators may gloss over areas of uncertainty or discomfort (McAlpine, 2016). Students who had negative experiences may have been less interested in recalling or discussing them. Participants may also have felt social pressure to curate their responses toward more positive memories (Vande Berg et al., 2012) to conform to what they believe they are expected to say or avoid raising vulnerabilities or unpleasant feelings in front of a stranger. One participant, Rose, shared that she was the victim of a crime on her study abroad program. While she wanted to be honest and forthcoming, she did not wish to discuss that situation in detail and instead focused, with seemingly genuine enthusiasm, on the many more positive aspects of her experience. Other students with similarly challenging experiences may have chosen not to participate or not to 154 share unpleasant memories. Those choices shaped the findings of this project, and certainly not all students’ narratives are represented in this study. Directions for Future Research As mentioned above, future research that privileges the stories of individuals from a broader array of racial and ethnic backgrounds and prioritizes intersectional identities in the analysis would be a welcome addition to the research. In this study I made a purposeful choice not to prioritize race/ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+ identity, or other identities in my analysis, and chose instead to prioritize lower-socioeconomic status. However, doing so has the danger of eliding or concealing important variations in experiences and narratives related to individuals’ intersecting identities. I felt this most deeply in my study in the cases of Mia, a Mexican American woman, and Bryan, a gay man. Their narratives both showed the influence of their intersectional identities in ways that were beyond the scope of the current study to grapple with but could enrich and nuance study abroad literature and practice in valuable ways. Another avenue for future research would be to take a longitudinal perspective as opposed to this study’s retrospective perspective. A longitudinal study could follow a small number of students from their study abroad experience to the immediate aftermath and any number of points in the future, to track the ways memories and their expressions evolve over time. Memories are fallible, and retrospective narratives are subject to both the context in which the events originally took place and the context in which they are currently being retold. A longitudinal study would allow the researcher to observe evolutions, particularly in the ways education abroad experiences are shared, in real-time rather than rely on participant reporting and interpretation of their previous representations. 155 In this dissertation I chose to focus on longer-term study abroad experiences of eight weeks or more. However, since the time frame under investigation and continuing into the present day, short-term programs of less than eight weeks comprise nearly two-thirds of study abroad experiences, meaning that a substantial majority of participants are engaged in shorter sojourns abroad. My choice to focus on longer-term study abroad arose from my supposition that longer experiences would more likely be memorable and influential in students’ lives after study abroad. A retrospective inquiry into narratives of shorter education abroad programs would be a valuable addition to the literature. Perhaps such a study would find short-term programs are so jam-packed with novel experiences that they turn out to be more memorable than the slower- paced, quotidian opportunities a longer sojourn provides. In addition, narratives of short-term experiences abroad might illuminate different themes. Perhaps such programs are seen as less of an investment since they offer less time for exploration or personal development. Almost certainly, individual narratives of short-term programs would have a different relationship to the existing cultural narratives of study abroad. Short-term experiences might have less in common, at least superficially, with the leisurely Grand Tour, but might have more in common with the neoliberal imaginary of study abroad, in which a student could choose the shortest option to reap the benefit of adding another line to a resume. As noted in Chapter 3, a substantial number of international education professionals expressed interest in participating in this research project. I ultimately decided not to pursue that approach as I anticipated their narratives would be heavily influenced by their careers in ways that might ultimately change the direction of the study. However, a study designed from the start to explore the pipeline of experiences from student abroad to study abroad professional would be 156 an interesting addition to the literature and could provide insight into the ways these individuals narrate a professional identity and how, if at all, their narratives are similar or different from individuals who do not go into a study abroad career. The students in this study reported markers of lower-socioeconomic status, but the ways they described their upbringings typically included some markers of middle-class status, often related to capital in their families or home communities. For example, Bryan acknowledged that he received a lot of encouragement to take on leadership roles in his community during high school, building his capacity to succeed in college. While Drew was the first in his family to graduate from college, his parents saved money throughout his childhood to help fund his education. Several students had international travel experience prior to college, from visiting extended family abroad or taking family vacations to nearby destinations like Mexico or Canada. These factors are evidence of additional capital that may contribute to variations or mitigations of the individuals’ lower-socioeconomic status. Nearly all the students mentioned working on or off-campus during college to help pay for their expenses, but no one formally worked while studying abroad (other than under-the-table arrangements like sporadic baby-sitting). They were able to forgo an income for at least one semester or summer. In addition, none of the students in this study had caretaking responsibilities or financial dependents at the time they studied abroad. They were in a position where their financial straits were not so dire they could not make study abroad happen and have some money to have fun while they were there. Despite the cultural expectation that all study abroad participants are wealthy, these students did not discuss any significant disparity in experience between themselves and other, potentially wealthier, participants. Even those like Amy and Mia, who expressed regrets about not traveling as much as other students, ascribed their choices to 157 academic concerns rather than financial barriers. Future research that centers the memories and narratives of students with even greater capital constraints could provide an interesting counterpoint to this study. Conclusion In this qualitative study, I have sought to explore the memories and narratives of individuals from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds who studied abroad in the early 21st century. Findings from this study showed themes of Investing, Exploring, and Becoming were key parts of their narratives and meaning making about their experiences. I further found the stories of these individuals, who were not stereotypical education abroad participants, illuminated and nuanced existing cultural narratives of study abroad. This research has implications for colleges and universities and for international educators who believe in the value of study abroad for the academic, career, and personal development of students. This work ties together my personal experiences, scholarly interests, professional endeavors, and hopes for the future of study abroad and the many students of all backgrounds for whom the experience is, indeed, life changing. My hope is the stories of these participants will challenge, inform, and improve the practice of study abroad in ways that privilege and honor the varied voices with which students of different backgrounds remember and represent their experiences. 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Research Ethics, 12(3), 137–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016115626756 172 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS Interview Participant: Date: Start Time: Stop Time: Research Question Upon reflection after at least a decade, how do former students of lower socio-economic status narrate and make meaning of their study abroad experiences and the value of these experiences? Context These interviews are designed to elicit stories relevant to the grand narrative of an individual’s life in relation to their study abroad experience. Questions are divided into five phases corresponding to the narrative of an individual’s study abroad experience and subsequent life. Bolded questions are the main questions that will guide the interview phases and be asked of all participants. Non-bolded or bulleted questions are reminders to the researcher of what types of information to be attentive for, and/or may be asked directly if needed to stimulate conversation or elicit additional insights. Getting to know you Hi! It’s so nice to meet you and I really appreciate your interest in my topic! I’m happy to talk to you on this beautiful sunny day – at least, it’s beautiful and sunny here in Michigan where I am. What’s it like where you are? The focus of this first interview is on the study abroad experience, but it feels weird to dive into that without getting to know each other a little bit! So I thought maybe we could just lean into the weirdness and start out by introducing ourselves? My name is Sarah Whitaker and I am a Ph.D. student at in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University. I just wanted to give you some background on me – In addition to being a PhD student I’m a full time Academic Specialist at MSU, running experiential learning for the College of Natural Science. I am a born and bred Michigander, went to college in Indiana, and spent my junior year abroad in London. Even though it’s been close to 20 years, I still love talking about that experience, and that’s part of what prompted me toward this dissertation. What about you? First Interview Protocol Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today. 173 As you may know, the purpose of this study is to explore the ways people remember and represent their undergraduate study abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed. During this first interview, I would like to talk to you a little about your background and decision to study abroad, and then about your actual study abroad experience. I have some questions to guide our discussion, but my primary goal is to hear your story or stories as you would like to tell them. A few weeks from now, I’d like to schedule a second interview to learn more about your life since studying abroad. You completed the consent form and initial questionnaire online. Do you have any questions about that? All personal information gathered in this study will be kept confidential and your name and identity will not be disclosed in any way. I anticipate this interview will take about 60-90 minutes. At any time, you can end the interview, decline to answer any question, or take a break. I will be recording our discussion and may also take handwritten notes throughout our conversation. I will also transcribe the interview and will send you a copy of the transcription for any corrections or changes, as well as for your own records. Do you have any questions at this time? [START RECORDING NOW!] Awesome, let’s get started! Background Phase Before we dive into your study abroad experience, I would love to get a little bit of background about who you were in college. Can you tell me a little bit about where you are from and what you were like when you entered college? • Where did you go to college? • What were your goals when you entered college (professional, academic, personal?)? • What kind of educational background did you and your family have? What importance did your family place on education? • How would you characterize your socioeconomic background when you were younger? • What kinds of international experiences did you have growing up (not just travel, but perhaps through family, school, extra-curriculars, friends)? How did you learn about international topics? • How would you describe yourself at the time you went to college? Decision Phase How did you first encounter the idea of studying abroad? • What did you think about the idea at the time? • Had you known anyone who studied or traveled abroad? • Had you traveled abroad before? 174 Walk me through your process of deciding to participate in study abroad • Did you talk to anyone at school (e.g., faculty, staff, returnees) about it? • Did you talk to any family or friends about the idea? How did they react? • What did you hope to get out of studying abroad? Experience Phase Tell me a bit about the study abroad program(s) in which you participated • Why did you pick this program? • What was your academic experience like? o What classes did you take? o Did you learn a new language? • What was your social experience like? o Where did you live? o What did you eat? o Who did you spend time with? o How were you involved in the community? Additional questions to draw out stories, if needed • Tell me about your homestay/internship/service-learning/language immersion • If the topic of study abroad came up in an everyday conversation, tell me the story you are most likely to tell • Tell me a story about a meaningful experience (or more than one) that you had while on your study abroad program • What was the most surprising thing you did or saw on study abroad? • Walk me through a study abroad day that stands out in your memory • What do you remember most about your education abroad experience? • What do you wish had been different about your study abroad experience? Research suggests that learning is shaped by our backgrounds and context. How do you think your background or personal characteristics informed your experience abroad? I see from the questionnaire that you are a first-generation/Pell Grant/Financial Aid student. How did that identity form your experience? • That is all the questions I have for this first interview today. Is there anything else you want to add about any of these topics, or any other stories that you want to tell? I would love to schedule a second interview with you. Would you be interested in meeting again at this time two or three weeks from now, or would you like me to send you another Bookings link to make a second appointment? 175 Interview Participant: Date: Start Time: Stop Time: Second Interview Protocol It’s nice to see you again! Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed again today. As you may remember, the purpose of this study is to explore the ways people remember and represent their undergraduate study abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed. In this second interview, I’d like to hear about your life since studying abroad. I have some questions to guide our discussion, but my primary goal is to hear your story or stories as you would like to tell them. You completed the consent form and initial questionnaire online. Do you have any questions about that? All personal information gathered in this study will be kept confidential and your name and identity will not be disclosed in any way. I anticipate this interview will take about 60-90 minutes. At any time, you can end the interview, decline to answer any question, or take a break. I will be recording our discussion and may also take handwritten notes throughout our conversation. I will also transcribe the interview and will send you a copy of the transcription for any corrections or changes, as well as for your own records. Do you have any questions at this time? [START RECORDING NOW!] Awesome, let’s get started! Return Phase Have any additional memories or mentions of study abroad surfaced since our last conversation? Tell me the story of your return to the U.S. • What was your life like just after you returned from your program? Did it feel similar or different from when you left? • How did you re-integrate yourself into U.S. culture and your own home context? • How did you talk to others (e.g., friends, family, faculty) about your experiences? • Did you bring any souvenirs home? Tell me about any ways that you feel you or your life changed immediately after studying abroad • Did the experience prompt any changes to your major or post-graduate/career plans? • As you re-established old relationships and/or maintained new ones, did you notice changes in those relationships? 176 • Did you bring home any new interests or hobbies? Post-graduate Phase Tell me the story of your life since graduating – this could include career, relationships, activities, or anything else that you would like to talk about Can you tell me about any areas of your life today that you think your study abroad program had an influence on? • Is there anything you learned or gained from studying abroad that you find particularly meaningful or relevant in your life today? • Are you ever reminded of your time abroad in your everyday life? What do you remember? What prompts those memories? What kinds of experiences have you had sharing or talking about your education abroad experiences in your post-graduate life? • How do you represent your education abroad experience (e.g., in conversation, on a resume, by displaying photographs)? • Who is your audience? • What do you feel like you get out of those conversations or representations? • Has the topic of studying abroad come up since our last conversation? How do you feel today when you reflect on your study abroad experience? 177 APPENDIX B: RECRUITMENT QUESTIONNAIRE HOSTED IN QUALTRICS Name ________________________________________________________________ Email Address ________________________________________________________________ All participants in this study will be assigned a pseudonym (fake name). If you would like to select your own pseudonym, please do so here. If you choose not to select a pseudonym, the researcher will assign one for you. ________________________________________________________________ End of Block: Welcome Start of Block: Background Information Please fill out the information below to provide additional information about your background and your study abroad experience. Undergraduate institution(s) attended ________________________________________________________________ Undergraduate major(s) ________________________________________________________________ Year of Bachelor's degree graduation (leave blank if did not graduate) ________________________________________________________________ 178 How do you identify your gender? ________________________________________________________________ How do you identify your race/ethnicity? ________________________________________________________________ Where do you currently live? (city/state/country) ________________________________________________________________ What is your current occupation? ________________________________________________________________ End of Block: Background Information Start of Block: Study Abroad Information Study abroad program name (if applicable/known) ________________________________________________________________ Study abroad program location (city/country) ________________________________________________________________ Approximate dates (month/year--month/year) of your study abroad program ________________________________________________________________ 179 Study abroad program type (select any/all that apply) ▢ ▢ U.S. Faculty-Directed (led by a faculty member from a U.S. institution) Exchange/Direct Enroll (taking courses/living at a host institution with primarily local students) ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ Partner/Provider Organization (e.g., CIEE, IES, CEA, etc.) Island Program (taking courses/living with only other U.S. students) Unknown Other (please describe) __________________________________________________ Did your study abroad program include any of the following (select any/all that apply) ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ Homestay Internship Service-learning or community engagement Language immersion Undergraduate Research End of Block: Study Abroad Information Start of Block: Additional Information 180 At the time you entered college, where did you consider yourself "from?" (city/state/country) ________________________________________________________________ Prior to studying abroad, had you ever traveled outside the United States before? o Yes o No Did any of the following apply to you during childhood or college? (select any/all that apply) Eligible for free/reduced school lunch ▢ ▢ ▢ Was a first-generation college student (neither parent/guardian graduated from a Received state benefits (e.g., SNAP, housing assistance, etc.) 4-year college or university) ▢ ▢ Received a Pell Grant, Basic Education Opportunity Grant (BEOG), or Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (SEOG) Received other need-based financial aid or scholarships, such as federally- subsidized student loans, work-study funds, institutional grants, private scholarships, or similar aid 181 When do you first remember encountering the idea of study abroad? o In primary or secondary school (K-12) o When applying to college o At New Student Orientation or during your first year of college o After your first year of college o Other (please describe) __ ________________________________________________ Have any other members of your family studied abroad? (select any/all that apply) ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ ▢ Parent / Guardian Grandparent Sibling Cousin Child Other (please describe) __________________________________________________ End of Block: Additional Information 182 APPENDIX C: RECRUITMENT EMAIL Subject: Seeking EA participants from 1999-2009 for dissertation research Dear colleagues, My name is Sarah Whitaker and I am a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University. I am seeking research participants for my qualitative dissertation examining the ways that individuals reflect on and represent their education abroad experiences after several years have passed. I am seeking U.S. individuals who studied abroad for 8 weeks or more between the years of 1999 and 2009 to participate in two one-on-one Zoom interviews about their time abroad and their lives since. More information, along with a link to the consent form and initial questionnaire, is available on my website at https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/storiesabroad. If you would share this study with former students or anyone else in your professional or personal networks who might be interested in being interviewed, I would be very grateful. If you have any questions or concerns about this study, you can contact me directly at XXXXXXXX@msu.edu, or my dissertation chair, Dr. Kristen A. Renn, at XXXXXXXX@msu.edu. This study has been reviewed and approved by MSU’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). Sincerely, Sarah Whitaker Ph.D. Candidate in Higher, Adult, & Lifelong Education College of Education / Michigan State University 183 APPENDIX D: PARTICIPANT CONSENT FORM Hello, and thank you for your interest in my study! Please review the following consent form and indicate your acceptance by clicking the arrow (-->) at the bottom of the page. After the consent form, you will be taken to a brief questionnaire about your background and your study abroad experience. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at XXXXXXXX@msu.edu. Sincerely, Sarah Whitaker, Ph.D. Candidate Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University Participant Consent Study Title: Stories Abroad: Reflections and Representations of Education Abroad Experiences Principal Investigator: Kristen A. Renn, Ph.D. Co-Investigator: Sarah K. Whitaker (Ph.D. Candidate) Description of Research: You are invited to participate in a research study exploring the ways that individuals reflect on, represent, and value their undergraduate education abroad experiences after a significant amount of time has passed. Qualifications for participation in this study include having been a student at U.S. college or university who participated in a long-term (8 or more weeks) education abroad program between the years of 1999 and 2009. The purpose of this study is to explore the ways that individuals remember their education abroad experiences, represent them verbally and/or non-verbally, and articulate any value the education abroad experience added to their post-graduate lives. The study aims to contribute to the body of literature on the long-term benefits of education abroad and its influence on participants’ lives, which will be useful to educators and policymakers concerned with access to and outcomes of international student mobility. What Will Participation Involve? Your participation in this study is estimated to take about 2-3 hours total over the course of approximately one month. You will be asked to fill out a brief questionnaire about your background and study abroad experience, and then participate in 2 interviews lasting approximately 60-90 minutes each. Interviews will be conducted one on one between the participant and researcher using the Zoom videoconference platform. By signing this consent form, you agree to the recording of any interviews you participate in for this study. Afterwards, you will be sent the interview transcripts and have an opportunity to make changes or corrections if needed. 184 Are There Risks to Participation? The risks associated with participating in this study are minimal and no more than those generally expected in everyday interactions. Such minimal risks may include potential psychological stress through feelings of discomfort while recalling previous experiences, if those experiences were unpleasant. Your participation is voluntary. At any point and without justification, you can ask to take a break, decline to answer any question, or end the interview. You are also free to contact the researcher at any time to request that your responses be withdrawn from the study. What are the Benefits of Participation? Benefits of participating in this study include the opportunity to reflect on and speak about your experience with education abroad and the ways it has or has not influenced your subsequent life. The findings from this study have the potential to contribute to the body of literature on the benefits and outcomes of education abroad and to inform the theory and practice of international educators and policymakers. The findings from this study may be published. How Will Confidentiality be Protected? All information collected for the study will be confidential and stored electronically under password protection. Participants will be asked to select a pseudonym. If a participant declines to select their own pseudonym, one will be assigned to them. Additional details such as participants’ undergraduate institution or specific study abroad program name will be pseudonymized (e.g., Southwest State University) or referred to in generic, non-identifiable ways (e.g., a faculty-led program in London). Only pseudonyms or general descriptions will be used in the researcher’s notes, transcripts, drafts, or final manuscript, in order to protect participant identities. Will Compensation be Offered? There are no costs for participating in this study. As a token of appreciation, individuals who complete all parts of this study will have the option to select one of the following: • To receive a $50 Target gift card for your personal use, or • To have a $50 donation made by the researcher in your honor to the Fund for Education Abroad, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit awarding study abroad scholarships to students from under-represented backgrounds Your choice of either token of appreciation will not affect your participation in the study in any way. 185 Who to Contact with Questions? If you have any questions or concerns regarding this study, you may contact the researcher, Sarah K. Whitaker, at XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXXXXXXX@msu.edu. You may also contact the principal investigator and dissertation chair, Dr. Kristen A. Renn, Professor of Higher, Adult, & Lifelong Education, College of Education, Michigan State University at XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXXXXXXX@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns about your role and rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish, Michigan State University’s Human Research Protection Program by phone 517-355-2180, fax 517-432-4503, e-mail irb@msu.edu, or postal mail at 4000 Collins Rd, Suite 136, Lansing, MI 48910. By clicking on the → button below, you indicate your voluntary agreement to participate in this study, including having your interviews video-recorded. 186 APPENDIX E: EMAIL ACCOMPANYING TRANSCRIPTS Hi NAME, I hope you are doing well! I am excited to send you the transcripts of our conversations for my dissertation study. As you may recall, we spoke twice, with our first conversation focused largely on your study abroad experience, and our second conversation focused more on your life since then. Transcripts of both conversations are attached, and I welcome any feedback, clarifications, additions, or edits that you would like to make. Transcripts • These transcripts are not verbatim; they are faithful to our conversation but have been cleaned up to remove things like excess filler words, false starts, pauses, etc., while still maintaining natural conversational style. You may notice there are incomplete sentences, grammatical inconsistencies, and other verbal tics on both our parts (I had no idea how often I start a sentence with the word “so” until I listened to these!) – please don’t feel that these need to be corrected. I am more interested in any content-related additions or clarifications you might want to make. If there are none, or if you don’t have the time or inclination to look at these, that’s ok too! This is just an option, not an obligation. Privacy/Confidentiality • Your name has been pseudonymized in the transcription, both in the file name and if mentioned in the text. o The pseudonym you requested in the initial questionnaire has been used here. Your pseudonym is _________. If you would like to request a different pseudonym, please feel free to let me know. o OR o You did not indicate a preferred pseudonym on the initial questionnaire, so I have assigned you one. The pseudonym you have been assigned is __________. If you would like to request a different pseudonym, please feel free to let me know. • Additional details including colleges/universities, hometowns, and study abroad program names have not been masked in these transcripts but will be masked if mentioned at any point in the dissertation (e.g., a suburb of Detroit, a liberal arts college in the Midwest., etc.) Names of other individuals mentioned in conversation, such as partners or friends, have not been masked in the transcripts but will be pseudonymized or referred to by their relationship to the participant (e.g., “Jane’s partner”) if used in the dissertation text. Unless otherwise requested, study abroad geographic locations (city and/or country) will not be masked. Thank you As mentioned previously, I would like to offer a token of my appreciation for your time and candor in sharing your stories with me! I am happy to either • send you a $50 eGift Card to a national retailer (Target or Amazon, please let me know your preferred retailer and best email address to send it) or 187 • make a $50 donation in your honor to the Fund for Education Abroad, whose mission is “to provide scholarships and ongoing support to students who are underrepresented among the U.S. study abroad population.” If you could send me any feedback on your transcripts and let me know your choice of gift card or donation by October 31, I would appreciate it. If I do not hear from you, I will assume that you are ok with the transcripts and will make a donation in your name. Again, I absolutely cannot thank you enough for sharing your reflections on your study abroad experience for my dissertation research. Best, Sarah 188 APPENDIX F: NARRATIVE PROFILES OF PARTICIPANTS Amy – The Seeker “Maybe something unexpected comes up and you have opportunities or you discover new things and your life takes a really different course because of that. I don’t think that was really my path in the sense that I really pursued it. I wanted to live abroad. Study abroad… was a vehicle for me.” Amy is a White woman in her late-30s. Originally from the U.S. West Coast, she is currently living in Europe. Her first study abroad experience was a short program during a high school break. She desperately wanted to go but was sure there was no way her parents would approve. Her family did not travel or have any interest in it. To her surprise, she was allowed to participate. A few years later, she enrolled in college in a large city several hours from home, funded by need-based financial aid and grants. She participated in a short language study abroad program between her sophomore and junior year, which was so influential that she had a hard time re-adjusting to the United States when she returned. She felt like she had been learning so much more out in the world. Coming back to the classroom was a letdown, so she decided to take a semester off. When she returned to school, Amy changed her major and began strategizing how to study abroad again. This time, she intended to go for a year, graduate, and stay. She ended up spending her senior year in Florence, Italy at a study center affiliated with local universities. She took intensive language courses to start, then transitioned into content courses in Italian for her second semester, including sociology, history, and literature. All the faculty were Italian, and the courses were truly an immersion even though she took them with other English-speaking students. In Italy, she was a motivated and diligent student, wanting to absorb as much 189 knowledge, culture, and language as possible. Though she was graduating and finished with her degree requirements, she continued to take a full load of courses each semester she was abroad. Despite being at a U.S. student-focused study center, Amy’s program offered little support, particularly around housing. The students were provided with a hotel for a few days of program orientation and were expected to secure their own living arrangements for the rest of the semester. Amy and a friend responded to newspaper ads and pulled tabs off flyers on bulletin boards to find places for rent, and eventually found a shared room in a house with Italian students only a 15-minute walk from the study center. The housemates were friendly but spoke almost no English. Amy sat through many dinners together, understanding very little, until one day, it clicked, and she did. In addition to her coursework and spending time with her housemates, Amy volunteered teaching English at an elementary school in Florence. It was not a formal offering on her program, just an opportunity that came up through a connection she made with a staff member at the study center. She tried to take advantage of every opportunity she could in the community. Much like at her urban campus at home, Amy’s life did not revolve around the study center. She went there to take her classes, sometimes to study independently, but the rest of her life was outside that space, where she was trying to build a life that would allow her to stay in Italy. She was hyper-aware of stereotypes of American students in Italy and put a lot of pressure on herself to be different, to be accepted locally. She made many friends, but also spent a lot of time independently, just living daily life, cooking, going to the post office, paying her cell phone bill, reading in a nearby park. Amy did not travel much on weekends, partly because her classes were scheduled Monday through Friday with strict attendance policies, but also because she was fixated on 190 living like a local. Nonetheless, she did not stay completely immobile, or behave responsibly in every circumstance. Once when she and a friend had taken a weekend trip to France, they arrived quite late at night and could not find their accommodations. They were approached by an older gentleman who offered to show them the way, and not knowing any better options, decided to follow him along a twisting and turning route. Despite their misgivings, he ended up delivering them exactly where they needed to go. At the end of her program, Amy stayed in Florence. She enrolled in an English-teacher training course, and upon completion she was hired as a teacher at the same school. She moved to a new apartment and began her long-awaited life as an independent adult abroad. She worked at the school for over a year before taking a different position. The Christmas after her study abroad program ended, she made a short visit to the United States to see her family on the West Coast. Riding in the car back from the airport, she was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the freeway. She could feel the strange vibes when she made a comment about how “we” do things in Italy, identifying herself with Italian over American culture. No one in Amy’s family had been to visit her yet in Italy, though her mother had wanted to come during her study abroad. After almost two years in Italy, she returned to North America to pursue a master’s degree. She was enjoying her life in Italy, but with maturity came the realization she wanted more opportunities for stability and career progression. Her visa status was murky, and she did not have health insurance, though that was less of a problem in the European context than it would be in the United States. After completing her master’s degree, she and her partner settled on the West Coast, near where Amy grew up. Unfortunately, the job market was dismal, and after two years they returned to Italy. This time, Amy had the proper documentation and was able to secure a job working in education. 191 She did that for several years, while continuing to volunteer as an English teacher and study intercultural communication at local universities, until she grew restless again. Her relationship had ended, and though she liked her job well enough, she was not sure it would fulfill her long-term ambitions. She applied for an English teaching opportunity in the Middle East, an area and culture totally new to her. The experience challenged her notions of intercultural competence, both theoretically and personally, and the complexity, applicability, and limitations of intercultural theory and practice across locations. She decided to pursue a PhD in intercultural studies at the end of her time time in the Middle East. Amy articulates her experiences with education abroad as a vehicle that moved her toward her goal of living and working abroad as an independent adult. Her undergraduate study abroad experience has now become just another part of her life, the answer to the question “How did you learn Italian?” asked by acquaintances and colleagues, an accessible stepping-stone to a desired trajectory. Amy does not expect to return to the United States full-time, though she is not necessarily opposed to the idea. However, after living most of her adult life in other countries, abroad is where and how she feels most comfortable. Bryan – The Striver “I didn’t have any of this on my bingo card for life. I remember feeling like I had really done something, and I wanted to be able to share that with others, to get credit for it.” Bryan is a man in his mid-30s originally from a rustbelt town in the Midwest, not far from the city where he now lives with his husband. He was raised in a stable, lower-middle class White family, where both of his parents worked full-time jobs and neither went to college. While he had very little exposure to travel or international activities growing up, he did have a strong orientation toward volunteer service, fostered largely through his family’s active involvement in 192 their local church, which ran a soup kitchen. An outspoken and articulate student, he was regularly tapped by his church and school for leadership development and service opportunities, including a government immersion program in high school that sparked his interest in a career in public policy, rather than his intended path into medicine. After graduating as valedictorian of his high school, Bryan enrolled in a large, research- intensive university in his home state to study public policy. He learned about study abroad during his first year, and though intrigued, he was not willing to give up a full semester of his vibrant academic and campus life. During his sophomore year, a friend told him about a summer opportunity in southeast Asia that piqued his interest. He had come to feel study abroad was part of the university’s identity and he wanted to be a part of it. Bryan was hesitant due to the cost, but his mother ultimately suggested he not let money stand in the way of this investment in his future. He decided to go for it. Bryan spent the summer after his sophomore year studying political and economic development in Thailand and Laos. The program was led by a faculty member from his academic department and the courses, focused on comparative politics and political economy, counted directly toward his major. The group landed in Thailand on an oppressively hot summer day after hours in the air. Bryan’s journey had begun at 4 am the previous day, and included hitting a deer, having to turn around to switch cars, and almost missing his first flight. Though stressed, he adopted the mentality that the worst had already happened and plowed ahead. On his first night in Bangkok, he and his fellow students were having a drink near their hotel when they saw a man leading a giant elephant down the road in the middle of the city. They gathered around to feed it peanuts, and Bryan thought to himself, “This is study abroad.” 193 The students stuck closely together throughout their time abroad. They swam in the hotel pool in their free time, ate dinner and went out for drinks together. Bryan had come out as gay his first year of college and he struggled with articulating his gay identity, in part due to tensions with his religious upbringing and body dysmorphia. In Thailand, he found himself more at peace with being gay, learning that in southeast Asian cultures there are many different genders and gender expressions, all with important, societally accepted roles. He had a brief flirtation in a bar with someone he thought was cute, bumming a cigarette as an excuse to start a conversation (which, being a non-smoker, he subsequently smoked much too fast, got lightheaded, and had to sit down, not the most romantic interaction.) When the group left Bangkok, they traveled by train to the Laotian border where they had to depart the train and cross a bridge on foot to enter Laos. There was a sign at the border crossing detailing the punishments for importing illegal drugs into Thailand: imprisonment, execution, and confiscation of property. The sign stopped Bryan in his tracks, not because he was carrying anything illegal, but because the punishments seemed to be listed in reverse order. Who cared about property if you were dead? On reflection, he began to understand that he was thinking through the lens of individual-focused American culture, not communal Thai culture. Loss of property would dispossess families and kinship networks. In this culture, it could be a greater punishment than repercussions only focused on the individual. In Laos, the students were transported in tricked out minivans, with more amenities than any car Bryan had used at home, like DVD players, curtains, and leather seats. One day, the vans were pulled over by a military tank, and several armed military personnel with machine guns approached them. The students were terrified, but it turned out the soldiers just asked if they were American and if they would take a picture with them. The group very happily complied. 194 While there was no danger to the students in that instance, Bryan was incensed later when he felt a member of the group put them all in danger by lying to security agents about having a knife in his backpack as they boarded a small plane. Bryan was not particularly fond of this classmate, who seemed to delight in being loud and culturally inappropriate, but he found him instructive as an example of exactly the kind of visitor Bryan did not want to be. Bryan was hugely aware of his privilege in getting to participate in study abroad. As a first-generation student, he had already broken barriers just to reach college, and he felt pressure to succeed based on all he had achieved in high school. Studying abroad felt like another badge of honor, something that set him apart. Bryan returned home for a few weeks at the end of summer, bringing souvenirs for his family as well as himself, a set of wind chimes, a lacquer fan still proudly displayed in his home. He went back to school in the fall with a renewed sense of purpose and deeper ability to integrate political theory with practical application. A few months after his return, as he was enrolled in a senior seminar on democratization, a military junta seized power in Thailand, and Bryan wrote his senior honors thesis on these events. He was proud to talk to anyone about his study abroad experience, sharing stories informally with family and friends as well in official settings like campus tours or student panels. While studying abroad, Bryan decided he wanted a career in the Foreign Service. After graduation, he joined the Peace Corps as a steppingstone toward that goal. He was placed in the South Pacific as an English teacher, and the first six months were a struggle due to his isolated placement, difficulty integrating into the community, and focus on his own goals. Eventually, he came to the realization that he needed to let go, be present, and be open to what the community 195 needed from him. He ended up extending his time in the Peace Corps for an additional year, teaching English and working on community-led health initiatives. Returning from the Peace Corps, Bryan decided not to pursue a Foreign Service career, realizing he wanted to be on-the-ground as part of a community, not locked away in an embassy. He found a job in a non-profit organization and after a few years enrolled in graduate school for public health, where he had the chance to work on multiple international projects and spend time in several additional countries. His work in graduate school led him to a position on the global health team of a regional hospital system, where he stayed for nearly a decade before taking on a new challenge as CEO of a non-profit healthcare organization. The unifying thread in Bryan’s life has been his commitment to serving others. His study abroad experience in Thailand and Laos may appear disconnected to that thread because it was not a cultural immersion experience, and the primary purpose was for him to learn, not to help. But that summer in Thailand and Laos, as an integral part of his liberal arts degree, also helped him develop critical thinking skills, practice reflection, and become more comfortable with his identity. It inspired him to think about future international work and took his career in a new direction. Today, he is deeply grateful for his study abroad experience. When applying for student loan forgiveness recently, he calculated how much extra money his summer in southeast Asia cost in the context of his entire education, and the percentage was minuscule. For Bryan, studying abroad was the “best bang for [his] buck” of his educational career. Canelo – The Go-Getter “It definitely pushed me from a political standpoint to understand what my values were and where my heart stood and what I wanted to fight for, and how I wanted to leave the world a little bit of a better place.” 196 Canelo is a White woman originally from the U.S. Midwest. She was raised in a mid-size town with her mother, father, and younger sister, and moved to a big city to attend college as a finance major. Her goal was to someday have a prestigious job in a corner office downtown. She was driven and competitive, and her college priorities were to work hard and play hard. When she heard a presentation in Spanish class about the opportunity to study abroad in Chile, she was hooked instantly. She was drawn to the adventure, to how wild and raw the experience sounded, living in a country “at the end of the world” emerging from a dictatorship. She was decided to spend a semester of her sophomore year in Santiago, Chile. She used the money she had saved from three jobs to fund this adventure, which cost less than a semester on campus, along with a loan and a small amount of help from her parents. Canelo arrived in Santiago on a flight by herself and was met at the airport by an energetic older woman who bundled her and a few other students into a van to drop them off at their host homes. Canelo’s host family turned out to be a divorced woman and her two daughters, one of whom was around Canelo’s age. They became good friends, and Canelo spent a lot of time with her host sister and her friends, going to parties and out dancing. However, after a few weeks, Canelo decided to move due to the family’s habit of smoking indoors. Cigarette smoke bothered her, but she was not comfortable asking the family to change their habits for her. When the family found out why she had moved, they agreed to smoke only outdoors and asked her to come back. She lived with them for the rest of the semester. The program began with a month of Spanish immersion for the U.S. students, followed by several weeks break before the start of classes at the Chilean university. During the break, Canelo traveled all over Chile with friends from her program. They enjoyed backpacking, camping, going to the beach, and meeting new people. Canelo also began dating a Chilean man, 197 which expanded her social circle and enhanced her ability to speak Spanish. She would sometimes meet up with her U.S. friends throughout the semester to enjoy some time speaking English, but for the most part her social life was grounded in speaking Spanish and spending time with her Chilean sister, friends, and boyfriend. Canelo could not take business classes while she was abroad, but she was able to fulfill several liberal arts requirements through her courses on history, economics, and writing, all of which were taken with Chilean students. Her history course was particularly impactful, focusing on socioeconomic history in Chile and the influence of culture and capitalism. Canelo’s math and business background had heretofore framed her understanding, and her papers emphasized a rational and economic analysis of war and dictatorship. One day, the professor gently called her out, asking “Where is your heart? What about the human element?” That question and the class as a whole sparked a period of learning and reflection about her own values and what kind of person she wanted to be. Her program required students to participate in service-learning, so Canelo volunteered each week at a shelter for women and children who had experienced domestic violence. Getting there and back required a 20 minute walk each way and she used that time to reflect and process the things she was learning and experiencing. She began to develop different views than the ones she was raised with, as she reflected on the U.S. government and its interference in other countries, such as Chile. She was frequently asked for her opinions on topics like the Chilean dictatorship, which she did not know how to answer because she did not live through it, and the George W. Bush administration, which was still leading the United States at the time. Her reactions changed as her thinking evolved. Her understanding of the United States also changed 198 through her friendship with two black women on her program, as she reflected on her own privilege and lack of awareness of systemic racism and discrimination at home or abroad. Canelo was competitive and driven by nature, wanting to be the best at whatever did. She was a gifted athlete, a soccer player and runner, and a gifted student, earning all 7s, the highest grade available, in her Chilean classes. But in Chile she also experienced a mindset shift about what it means to learn, to take risks and be vulnerable, and to have empathy for others and support them, instead of always trying to be better than them. On a hiking trip with friends, she carried the biggest pack and moved the fastest, and eventually someone else suggested slowing down and taking a break. Canelo was eager to keep the group moving, but was brought up short by the follow up question—why? There was no finish line. It was just a camping trip, a chance to hang out and be together and enjoy each other’s company. Her personality did not immediately change overnight, but that mindset shift helped her start to embrace and value a slower pace of life. At the end of the semester, Canelo cried the entire way back from Santiago to the United States. She was thrilled to see her family again, but the ride back from the airport was strained because she was still so sad about leaving Chile. She returned to school, happy to be back in the city with her new, more relaxed mindset. She reconnected with friends and rejoined her sports teams. She continued studying Spanish and ended up completing a Spanish major almost accidentally. She did not declare Spanish as a major until after she had taken all the classes and a professor pointed that she had completed the major requirements. Her attitude toward her business major changed substantially based on the values shift she had experienced in Chile, as she began to recognize how data and policies have very real effects on people’s lives. 199 Unsure of what she wanted to do after graduation, Canelo joined an organization that places recent college graduates in public schools, thinking it would be a way to use her skills for good and buy herself some time to figure out her next steps. She taught high-school math in low- income communities, where many of her students and their families spoke Spanish, for five years. Feeling herself start to burn out, on a whim she booked an open-ended plane ticket back to Chile. She planned to stay a few months, backpacking, working on organic farms, and teaching English. She ended up staying for three years. Shortly after arriving in Chile for the second time, she met a Chilean man who eventually became her husband. They began building a life together in Chile, but after a few years, he was offered a job in the United States. Shortly after they moved, Canelo and her partner eloped in a private ceremony, though they later had wedding celebrations both in the Midwest and Chile. The Chilean celebration was attended by Canelo’s host sisters from many years prior. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple and their children decided to leave the West Coast city they had called home for several years. Canelo had started working in the tech industry, and both she and her husband were able to work remotely. When their remote work situations became permanent, they began planning a major relocation. They bought property in Chile and began building their dream home, searching for schools, and attending to the necessary logistics of moving abroad as a family. They moved back to Chile last year, and the entire family is enjoying their new adventure. Canelo’s study abroad experience was life-defining for her in so many ways. Studying abroad was an intense learning experience that challenged the parochial worldview she had developed growing up in a small midwestern town. Her personal values, political opinions, mindsets, and ways of being shifted during that semester in pivotal ways, which she 200 subsequently built upon as she embarked on her adult life and career in the United States and Chile. Looking back on it today, she feels fortunate she followed her instincts and took advantage of that initial study abroad opportunity. Debby – The Independent “The purpose of that study abroad was not to learn French. The purpose of that study abroad was to be in Geneva.” Debby is a White woman in her mid-30s living in a mid-size city in the southeastern United States. She grew up in a rural county with her mother and sister after her parents divorced when she was young. Debby’s mother was unable to work due to illness and her father frequently missed his child support payments, so resources were tight for their family. They had a stable home and there were certainly families worse off in the local area, but Debby’s mother was constantly pinching pennies to make ends meet. Debby’s mom placed a high priority on education for her daughters. She had been the first in her family to attend a four-year college. Debby’s own college search was complicated by her mother’s cancer diagnosis, as Debby knew she needed to be within a few hours of home so she could quickly return if needed. At the same time, Debby longed to get out of her home state, not wanting to go to the flagship state university nearby where she had a scholarship based on her excellent grades. Instead, she selected a small, highly selective private university in a nearby state, less than four hours from home. Debby’s mom first introduced her to the idea of studying abroad, after attending a parent presentation at a prospective student tour. She returned from the session with a handful of brochures and told Debby study abroad sounded really cool and she should do it. When Debby arrived at school she quickly met lots of students who were just back from or planning their 201 study abroad experiences. But for Debby, study abroad was not a possibility as long as her mother was ill. Unfortunately, Debby’s mother passed away near the beginning of her sophomore year. Though her family encouraged her to take a semester off, Debby wanted to be back at school and began thinking more seriously about studying abroad for part of her junior year. She selected a program in Geneva, Switzerland. Debby was attracted to the program, run by a U.S. public university, as a chance to learn French and take courses toward her political science major. Debby had to arrange with her professors to write additional papers for her political science classes abroad to meet her home college’s requirements for transfer credit. The classes were small, limited only to the students on the program, and taught by local faculty. They would take field trips, touring the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Red Cross, and other nearby organizations. The students had passes to the U.N. library, which Debby used to do research for her required papers. The program encouraged students to get out and about in the city, country, and continent, providing local bus passes and a Eurail pass for the duration of the semester. Classes were only scheduled Monday through Thursday, giving students long weekends to travel and explore. Debby loved Geneva for its beauty, the views of Mont Blanc, the sunsets over the lake, as well as its sense of safety and delicious food and wine. She visited all the tourist sites in the small city more than once, exploring the Old Town and attending different festivals, including one that commemorated a battle in which the residents poured stew over the walls to defend the city. She developed friendships of convenience with a few of the people on her program, but she held different priorities for her time abroad than many of her peers. She rarely drank alcohol and was more interested in exploring museums and learning about art and culture than going to bars 202 and clubs. Because so many of her friends from her home university were also studying abroad, she spent most weekends traveling around Europe to meet up with them in various destinations. Some of her most memorable experiences happened on those trips, though often accompanied with a sense of danger. When passengers were forced off a train due to track flooding and had to find the right busses to carry them onward, she had to trust a local young man she had just met to help her navigate. On a visit to Austria, Debby and a friend missed the last bus back to the city and ended up hitchhiking back to their hostel. In Prague, Debby had to stand her ground against a scammer posing as a police officer attempting to confiscate her passport. Many of these (mis)adventures would have been mitigated by modern technology, but access to resources like cell phones and Wi-Fi was very different 20 years ago, and Debby was required to be more resourceful (or perhaps reckless) than she would be today. Debby returned to the United States at the end of the semester, shortly before Christmas. She was ready to get home and see her sister, and worried staying any longer would cost additional money she did not have. Her last two years of college, including her study abroad, were funded through the life insurance she inherited from her mother. Nonetheless, she wished she had stayed longer to travel. Despite all her weekend trips, there were still places she wanted to go. Returning to campus for the second half of her junior year, Debby dove back into her college experience. She lived in her sorority house, led the swim team, and took advanced courses needed for her major. She continued studying French and enrolled in a course about the U.S. presidency that fascinated her, despite her general disinterest in national politics. She proudly displayed a Swiss flag bumper sticker on her car, a common practice among students on campus to showcase their study abroad experiences. 203 While abroad, Debby had decided law school was in her future, so she began to prepare in earnest. She took the LSAT twice, diligently studying each time, and got accepted to law school. She planned to enroll immediately after graduation, until a meeting with the campus fellowship advisor caught her attention. She learned about the Fulbright program, and though she protested that her post-graduate plans were set, the advisor encouraged her to consider deferring law school for a year. Enticed by the opportunity to go abroad again, she applied for and was awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. Debby was placed in an international elementary school in Spain, where she worked 20 hours a week with first and second graders, mostly helping them with pronunciation. During her time off she traveled to many of the places she had not gotten to during her semester abroad. At the end of the year, she was offered the chance to extend her stay but declined, deciding the time had come to start the next phase of her life, and returned home to enter law school. She had initially hoped to become a lawyer for international children’s rights but decided it was not the right fit for her skillset, so she pivoted toward trial practice and evidence. She approached her studies practically, knowing she needed to specialize in an area in which she could find a job. After graduation, she clerked for a year and then took a job with a big law firm. She had a two-month gap between those jobs, and with her sizable signing bonus in hand, took some time to visit both Europe and South America before beginning her new career. After returning from her Fulbright, she had set a goal for herself to leave the United States at least once a year, even in the midst of the professional grind. During her years working in big law firms, she had to plan her travel strategically to meet her billable hours. Now working for the government, she has other restrictions and permissions to consider. Some years, her 204 international travel has been just a quick trip to Canada or a destination wedding in the Caribbean; other times, it has been lengthy trips either solo or with friends or family. Reflecting on her education abroad experience now gives Debby “warm and fuzzy” feelings. She knows she would not have applied for the Fulbright without that first experience in Geneva, and the Fulbright is what really cemented her commitment to travel in her adult life. She values the freedom she had as an undergraduate in Europe, both freedom of physical movement and exploration aided by easy access to transportation and freedom from responsibility and regulation, particularly now as an adult with a demanding career. The experience was formative for her, especially in early adulthood, and she would encourage anyone who can to study abroad. Drew – The Leader “I had this opportunity to be something totally different, but yet… even in this context where maybe I didn’t have the strongest skill set, I still got nudged into this leadership role.” Drew is a White male in his 30s currently living with his wife and children in a Midwestern college town. He was raised in a blue-collar suburb of a nearby city. The only child of parents who did not complete college, Drew was expected to attend college from an early age and his parents saved money to make that possible. After high school, where he excelled as an athlete and student government leader, Drew enrolled at his state’s land-grant university with a focus on pre-law. His interest in law school faded as he progressed in his studies, and he looked for another avenue to channel his leadership skills and interest in the social sciences. He joined the secondary education program, intending to become a social studies teacher. Drew was practical about his future career and knew the job market for social studies teachers at the time was quite dismal. He had begun taking Spanish classes to meet a proficiency requirement for his major, but 205 soon added a second major in the language to diversify his teaching portfolio and make himself more marketable. The Spanish major required him to complete some type of immersive experiential learning. He had never considered study abroad a possibility before because of the expense and his commitments on campus, including his job as a resident assistant, which helped pay for his room and board. He found the most practical option was an 8-week summer study abroad program in Santander, Spain, through which he could take upper-level Spanish courses to fulfill degree requirements. Drew’s cohort consisted of over 30 students from his home university. Classes were taught at a local university by local faculty members. Drew enrolled in three courses focused on Spanish culture, phonetics, and conversation. The culture class was instrumental in helping him understand what was happening around him. The class developed a bit of a game they called “Es normal?” or “Is this normal?” where they would present situations they encountered around town to each other and the instructor for discussion. For example, when the students asked if it was normal for older people to cut in line, they learned orderly queues were less of a cultural norm in Spain than they might have been used to in the United States. Students on Drew’s program were housed in individual homestays. He was picked up from orientation on the first day by a woman in her thirties who walked him to the apartment, asking repeatedly what he liked to eat for breakfast (hosts were required to provide breakfast) and if he had any questions. He did not understand what was happening until she turned to leave. Though she was the apartment’s owner, she told him, she lived a few towns over, and Drew would be sharing the apartment with two other local students she rented rooms to. The next 206 morning, Drew woke up to find six boxes of Special K on the kitchen table, enough to last his entire stay, and never saw the owner again. Serendipitously, Drew was naturally outgoing and independent, and took the situation in stride. He developed friendly relationships with the other two residents, and though his university wanted to move him when they learned of the unusual situation, he liked the independence and the apartment’s central location and asked to stay. Though he did not have a traditional host family, he became friends with an older couple who owned a restaurant near his apartment. They took him under their wing, teaching him to cook and looking out for him. He quickly formed friendships with his classmates, as they spent their mornings in classes together and their afternoons, evenings, and weekends exploring the city and enjoying the local beaches and nightlife. Though his Spanish was not the best in his cohort, by far, he tended to be one of the students most inclined to speak up, and frequently found himself the leader when out with a group, the one who would chat with a taxi driver or shopkeeper. Drew’s classes took place in the early morning, so he would frequently go out exploring on his own while waiting for his friends to finish up. He enjoyed doing quotidian things in a new context, like going running in the neighborhood, visiting grocery stores, or getting his hair cut, but not all his experiences were so tame. He and his classmates decided to visit Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls, though they had been warned by the program not to join in the running. Though he was generally a rule-follower, Drew could not resist this opportunity. He and a friend decided to go for it anyway, dressing in the traditional garb of San Fermin and running the course with the bulls. As they exited the barricades afterwards, one of his classmates snapped a candid picture of Drew climbing out of the bull run, a picture that remains one of his prized possessions, a memento of a true once-in-a-lifetime experience. 207 Drew returned to the United States at the end of the summer, happy to see his family and his girlfriend (who is now his wife) again before heading back to campus to begin his fourth year. He finished his Spanish major and completed his oral proficiency exam (a requirement for teacher certification) shortly after returning from study abroad, when his language skills were at their peak. After completing the requirements for his social science major and student teaching for a semester, Drew graduated and began looking for a job in a crowded field. After dozens of applications, he was offered a Spanish teaching position in a rural area. True to form, he dove into his new role as a high school world language teacher, conducting his classes with gusto, all in Spanish, until a mentor teacher finally told him to rein it in so as not to overwhelm the students. On top of his classroom work, Drew started a Spanish club, advised the student government, and began coaching sports. A few years into his career, he went back to school for a master’s degree so he could move into academic administration. He also launched a travel program, organizing and leading student trips to Europe and Central America. These trips were an outgrowth of his goal as a teacher, to open students’ eyes to the world; whether they traveled with him or not, he wanted his students to understand the world outside their small town. He led his final student trip just after being named principal. After several years in his first school district, Drew and his wife decided they wanted to raise their family in a different environment and moved back to their college town. He became principal of a much larger school and is working on his doctoral degree part-time. His new school regularly hosts exchange students and has a robust world language program with long- established student travel opportunities. Because of his past experiences, Drew is an empathetic and enthusiastic supporter of these activities and students. He and his wife have traveled together 208 when they can, although the COVID-19 pandemic canceled their big anniversary trip, and he hopes to take their kids on an international trip before they leave for college in several years. Looking back on the experience, Drew is grateful he took advantage of the chance to study abroad, which has shaped his vocation and his life in many ways. He wears the experience like a badge of honor, and though he really cannot say he regrets anything about the experience, he wishes it had been longer. He is proud he made the most of the time he did have, packing a ton of academic, social, cultural, and personal development into that two-month span, which he calls, “Hands down, the most influential eight weeks of my life.” Erica – The Enthusiast “Why not?... I think that attitude carries forth. If anything, studying abroad inspired that to grow exponentially.” Erica is a White woman in her early 40s who lives in a major East Coast U.S. city, across the country from her childhood home in the Pacific Northwest. From a young age, Erica was interested in different people and cultures. She had family abroad and grew up hearing her grandfather’s stories of his travels in the Navy. Erica identifies her background as working-class, though her parents were the owners of a local bar and restaurant. Her mother did not attend college, and her father earned his degree as a non-traditional student in his 30s. Neither of her parents traveled abroad until well into adulthood, and Erica’s first international experience was a family trip to visit relatives in Europe when she was in high school. The desire to study abroad was a major factor in Erica’s choice of college. She settled on a small liberal arts college where she played volleyball and majored in international studies. As an athlete, she could only be away from campus for one semester, so she intentionally chose to study abroad in an English-speaking destination, feeling she would be better able to meet local 209 students and integrate herself in local culture without a language barrier. She selected a program in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland, in the spring of her junior year. When Erica’s plane landed at the Shannon airport, it was dark and gray and pouring rain, and she thought to herself “What in the world have I signed up for?” Her cohort spent their first two weeks living in homestays with Irish-speaking families in rural Connemara as part of their first course on Irish history and culture, an introduction to an Irish way of life quite different from what they would experience in the city. At the university in Galway, Erica found the courses a big change from the small seminar-style classes she was used to at home. She developed an interest in modern Irish history, so much that she would later add a history major to her degree. She was drawn in by the living history of Ireland, which at the time was less than 100 years old as an independent country and only a few years past the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. One of her most memorable experiences was a program excursion to Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland, the site of the Bloody Sunday demonstration in 1972, where one of the original leaders of the protest guided the students along the path of the march, telling the story from his firsthand perspective. While experiences like this would prove formative for Erica’s academic achievements, she really loved the social experience of studying abroad. She felt more worldly, enjoyed being exposed to new people, and appreciated the anonymity of a larger university and city. Erica chose to live with local students rather than her U.S. peers, though she worried local students would already have established friend groups and she would be an outsider both individually and culturally. Her Irish housemates welcomed her, often inviting her to go out with them or hang out at home. Together, they watched TV shows like Father Ted, an Irish sitcom Erica did not find funny at all, until one day she realized “Oh, this is actually really funny!” As she adapted to 210 Irish culture, Erica came to appreciate an Irish sense of humor, which she found witty and conversational, as compared to her own more sarcastic sense of humor, and she started to understand more of the cultural nuances and references. On a typical day, she would walk the 20 minutes from her apartment to campus for classes, lunch, and hanging out. She joined an intramural volleyball team, and regularly went running to stay in shape for her upcoming season. In the evenings, she would attend lectures or events put on by her program or the university, go out for dinner or drinks with her friends, or hang out at home watching TV with her housemates, many of the same things she would do at home, just across the pond. She quickly learned it was common for Irish students to go home on weekends, so weekdays and weeknights were busy with social activities, while weekends were Erica’s time for studying, relaxing, or getting things done. Having previously lived only with her parents or on campus, this was the first time she felt she really had to grow up and be fully responsible for activities like grocery shopping. Erica funded her time abroad through working at her parents’ bar and restaurant during summers and on breaks, so she did not have to work while she was in Ireland and was able to do a little bit of traveling on the side. After her classes ended, she stayed in Europe for another month to travel by train around the continent. When she returned to the United States later in the summer, with a suitcase full of books and bad outfits and a vocabulary peppered with European terms like mobile instead of cell phone, she went back to living with her parents and working at the bar, which felt like a letdown after such an exciting semester. Erica began thinking about how she could go abroad again. She went back to school and began investigating post-graduate opportunities abroad. She went to the career center for ideas, but their only suggestion was to 211 become an au pair, which held no appeal for Erica. She pivoted to searching for post-graduate degrees abroad. She enrolled in a master’s program in history in another European country. She found it challenging to adapt to the academic style, which was much more independent than her undergraduate degree, but once again she succeeded in forming strong social bonds with her classmates, who were primarily local. She moved back home after completing the degree and began searching for jobs. After more than 100 applications, she was offered a six-month paid internship on the East Coast, so she packed up her life and moved across the country. When the internship ended, she was hired for a full-time role in a different department, but shortly thereafter rumblings about a global recession began and her employer braced for layoffs. Fearing she would be a casualty of “last in, first out,” Erica began searching for a more stable way to ride out the recession. She applied for and received a PhD scholarship to an Irish university. Even though she did not want to be a professor, she believed it would help her in her future career. She spent five years in Ireland working on her PhD, lecturing and tutoring while conducting her research. She was in a different Irish city from where she studied abroad, but her social adjustment was aided by her pre-existing familiarity with Ireland and Irish culture. After defending her dissertation, she returned to the United States and took a position at a university in the same East Coast city as before, working with students interested in international fellowships and research. She has been in that role for nearly ten years now, advancing in leadership and responsibility and expanding her scope to work more closely with faculty and academic administrators on programs and research. 212 A few years after returning to the United States, Erica met her Irish husband. They discovered they had overlapped for a year at the university where Erica earned her PhD; though they never met there, they have determined it is very likely they passed each other at least a few times on a particular road they both frequently traveled. For now, they remain in the East Coast city where they met, married, and recently welcomed their first child, halfway between both their families. In the future, Erica thinks they might consider moving to be closer to one or the other. Erica still has a desire to explore outside the country, seeing new sights and learning about new communities. She credits her semester in Ireland with helping her become more informed about the world, more open to new experiences and ideas, and more mature and independent. She takes a “why not?” approach to life that was inspired, enhanced, and solidified by her study abroad experience. Mia – The Thinker “I was able to appreciate a different way of being that I didn’t know existed, in a different space that I didn’t know existed.” Mia is a Mexican American woman who grew up in a southwestern U.S. city, where she has returned to live as an adult, now in her late 30s. Mia’s parents are immigrants and when she was young the family would travel back to Mexico to visit relatives every year or so. As she got older, they would sometimes travel to more touristy areas of Mexico, such as Cancun. For Mia, these trips did not feel international, as she was surrounded by Mexican American culture in her home, neighborhood, and schools. She excelled academically and after graduation, she enrolled at a local private college. Her career goals were undefined, but she knew she wanted to help people and envisioned working in a non-profit organization, so she majored in sociology and business to give her a solid footing in both social justice and practical skills. 213 Study abroad was very popular among students at this college, and Mia learned about an opportunity to spend a semester in Costa Rica, a place she had been fascinated with since high school. The opportunity, including extra costs like her flight, could be fully funded by Mia’s scholarships and grants, making it no more expensive than a semester on campus. Mia’s parents were generally supportive of her participation. Like many first-generation students, Mia navigated college with significant independence and was responsible for her own decisions. She decided to spend a semester in San Jose, Costa Rica. In San Jose, Mia took courses in business, sociology, and art at the local university, credits she needed to stay on track to graduate at the end of the year. Mia’s academic background in sociology helped her process many of her experiences as a Mexican American woman in Costa Rica. As a Latina and fluent Spanish speaker, she anticipated she would blend into her new environment. Instead, she found her physical appearance was more stereotypically Latina than many of the people she interacted with, who had lighter skin, hair, and eyes, and her language skills were deemed “Mexican Spanish,” which immediately set her apart. Growing up in a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American area, she had not experienced these divisions before. For Mia, “pre-study abroad, Spanish was Spanish. Latinos were Latinos… and I learned very quickly that it wasn’t quite as easy to blend in as I had expected.” Her host family was welcoming. They were regular hosts used to integrating a new person into their home, but they had not hosted a non-White student like Mia before. She felt they did not quite know what to make of her. One time, her host mother saw Mia writing in an old, banged-up notebook she used for scratch paper because she hated to let it go to waste, and commented that she did not expect someone from the United States to use something of such poor quality. Mia shrugged. Another time, the host mother expressed surprise upon hearing from 214 Mia that the United States had people living in poverty and areas of poor infrastructure. She had an image of U.S. Americans all being wealthy, all being White or fair-skinned, and Mia was able to challenge her assumptions about what the United States was like. It helped they were able to converse in Spanish. Though her Spanish was recognizably different from Costa Rican Spanish, Mia’s fluency meant her host family was able to communicate and connect with her in deeper ways than with students who were just learning the language. Mia was particularly struck by the beauty of the Costa Rican landscape. She loved taking trips to the forest, beach, and mountains, learning about the ecology, wildlife, and agrarian history of the country. Unlike many of her peers, Mia did not travel outside of the country during the semester. Her focus was on her classes, so she spent a lot of time studying and prioritized living like a Costa Rican. She lived daily life with her host family, doing Zumba at the community center with her host mom, attending her host sister’s birthday celebration, getting her hair highlighted at the local salon. Mia was friendly with her cohort and enjoyed spending time with them too. She was the community klutz and endured good-natured teasing about her tendency to trip over things. In addition to their formal program activities, the group would do things like go to the beach or go out dancing. They made friends with various Costa Rican students through classes or activities organized by the study abroad program, and Mia stayed in touch with several of them for years afterwards. At the end of the semester, Mia returned home to a party of family and friends to welcome her. For as good a time as she had in Costa Rica, she was happy to be home. A natural disaster had hit her home state while she was away, and she had struggled with not being present even though there was little she could have done to help. Mia brought home little souvenirs for herself, a blanket, a wall hanging, a book on Costa Rican history and a classic sociology text in 215 Spanish, just because she thought it was neat to see another translation. After a few weeks, she went back to school for her final semester, living in the residence halls one last time. Her time in Costa Rica helped her reframe many of her perspectives on the world, especially through a sociological lens. She came to better understand differences between cultures, even those that share a language. She developed a greater understanding of privilege and power dynamics between countries and individuals, particularly through her class on social movements. Studying abroad helped her move out of a U.S.-centric frame and reassess her understanding of intranational relations within the United States. After graduation, Mia interviewed for a position working with a predominantly Black community and was asked to discuss a time when she dealt with cultural difference. She shared about her experience in Costa Rica and her realization that there is no such thing as “Latino culture”, that she was an outsider in Costa Rica despite speaking Spanish and having Mexican heritage. She recognized that just because she was from a non-White community, she would not automatically understand or be able to integrate into a different non-White community, even if they might have some similarities. She got the job. When her contract ended, Mia continued to work in policy and research, before earning her PhD at a respected New England university. She eventually returned to the southwest where she became an assistant professor at a public university. She is happy to be settled back in her hometown. Mia loves to travel, now with her husband and child in tow. She has been to multiple European and Asian countries, and marvels that her son has traveled more in his first few years of life than she did in her first 20. She was always curious about travel, but because of her family’s limited resources, it did not even seem like a possibility until she discovered she could 216 study abroad on financial aid. If she had not done that, travel might still feel like an abstract dream, something she could do someday, instead of the priority it has become. Over the years, Mia’s study abroad experience has faded more into the background of her life. Early on, she encouraged anyone she met who might have a chance to study abroad to take it. She was very disappointed when her younger cousin ultimately did not study abroad during his college experience. However, as she has moved into a stage where she has less contact with college-age individuals in her personal life, the topic comes up less. When her friends’ children reach college-age, she expects she will start pushing it all over again. Because of the culture of her undergraduate institution, Mia long thought study abroad was common, and it was not until she became a professor that she learned how few U.S. students participate in study abroad. She looks back on the experience now, after nearly 20 years, with deep gratitude that she did not overthink it. She is happy that she was “naïve and optimistic enough to just do something that sounded fun,” and in a position in life to take advantage of the opportunity, without financial obligations or caretaking responsibilities holding her back. Studying abroad helped shape the frame through which Mia sees the world and interacts with other people, and helped solidify cultural humility, comfort with being uncomfortable, and openness to new things as values by which she tries to live her life. Rose – The Educator “How did I even learn what study abroad was? No one in my family studied abroad… I don’t even know definitively how that entered my vernacular.” Rose is a woman in her mid-30s from a small city in the Midwest, where she is the second oldest of four siblings in a lower-middle class White family. She was involved in many activities growing up, but never traveled due to the family’s limited resources. She was exposed 217 to international ideas through friendship with exchange students at her school and her town’s sister city relationship with a municipality in Japan. She was interested in languages from a young age and began Spanish classes in high school, which she continued when she enrolled for her bachelor’s degree at a prestigious state university not far from her home. As a Spanish major aiming to become a teacher, Rose was exposed to the idea of study abroad early in her college career and was both excited and apprehensive about it. She was not comfortable taking “a whole semester off” to study abroad, fearing it would delay graduation. Though her first choice would have been a Latin American country, none of those programs fit her time frame so she decided to study in Salamanca, Spain for two months in the summer. It was her first time leaving the United States. In Salamanca, Rose took an upper-level Spanish language course with a professor from home and enrolled in Spanish History and Spanish Culture at a local university. The Spanish History course was her favorite. The instructor took the class on field excursions around the city. Rose was struck by how little she knew about Spain’s history, despite being a Spanish major, and how recent the horrors of Franco’s dictatorship were, barely 30 years past and well within the lifetime of her host mother. Rose’s homestay was in a high-rise condo owned by a single woman. The homestay provided three meals a day, and once she adjusted to the Spanish meal schedule of lunch around 2:30 pm and dinner at 9:30 pm, she grew to like it. Though Rose was the only guest from her program staying with this host, other students from around the world cycled in and out during her two months there. Rose’s host mother was kind and welcoming, though she did not speak any English, and they have stayed in touch. The host mother has invited her back to visit, though Rose has not yet been able to make the trip. 218 Rose and her classmates understood it was not the cultural practice to hang out in each other’s homes, so they spent much of their time out and about in Salamanca. Though she met a few locals, Rose primarily socialized with other students on her program. They often met up in the main plaza, walked around the city, frequented a local pool, went shopping, or watched soccer games. The Euro Cup soccer tournament shaped a large portion of their social experience as they would join local enthusiasts at bars or restaurants to watch the games. When the Spanish team won the championship game, the whole Plaza Mayor (main square) was turned into a viewing area, with a huge screen and shoulder to shoulder crowds of fans wearing jerseys and face paint, screaming, dancing, celebrating, in support of the national team. It was a cultural experience unlike any Rose had ever encountered. Despite her generally sunny recounting, Rose’s experience abroad was not all positive. Rose disclosed that she was sexually assaulted while on her study abroad program. She reported the assault to an onsite program coordinator but “nothing came of it.” While her report “was not handled properly by her program,” she nonetheless believes she “still had an incredibly meaningful, amazing experience, so I haven’t allowed that to cloud my experience.” Rose’s program included multiple organized excursions to other cities in the region. Rose was able to visit cities and towns throughout Spain, including Toledo, Segovia, Seville, and Cadiz, touring castles and cathedrals and monuments. After the program ended, Rose and a friend traveled to Italy for a week, making some questionable decisions along the way. They had planned to take a train, but upon booking their tickets, they discovered their intended route did not work. However, their Eurail passes covered an overnight ferry from Barcelona to the Italian coast, and they decided they were up for an adventure. When they arrived in the train station in Rome, they had no accommodations booked, so they decided to follow a tout to a random local 219 hotel. On their return to Spain, they slept on the airport floor to avoid paying for a final night in a hostel. At the time this all seemed like a fun adventure, and indeed everything worked out splendidly, though Rose acknowledges the potential dangers now. Rose was overjoyed to see her family waiting for her at the airport when she returned to the United States. Her homecoming was celebrated with a trip to a local chain restaurant, where Rose ordered a Diet Coke that tasted so different after two months away that she nearly spit it out. Rose enjoyed sharing stories of her time abroad with her family and friends, and as she settled back in, she was keenly aware of small differences in ways of using language or performing cultural rituals as she re-adjusted to the United States. A few weeks after returning from Spain, Rose began her junior year at the university, where she continued to regularly hang out with friends from her program, who she considers the closest friends she made in college. She settled back into her Spanish major with relative ease, her conversational fluency aided by her immersion experience in Spain. She delved deeper into the language with a Spanish linguistics class and briefly toyed with the idea of deeper study and a career in that area. However, she had wanted to be a teacher since she was young and decided to stay on that path. It was a practical path that made sense to her and led to a specific, stable career. The thought of studying something like linguistics or anthropology, which did not lead directly to a career, was frighteningly ambiguous. Though her career path did not change, her relationships did. Rose credits her study abroad experience with helping her become stronger and more independent, with a better developed sense of self. She was more confident and comfortable both socializing and being by herself, but also struggled to process the assault she experienced while abroad. She began to question the romantic relationship she had been in for several years and broke up with her 220 boyfriend a few months after returning from Spain. She went on to date “a string of really terrible people” and then take a break from dating for several years before meeting her current partner, who she has been with for the last five years. Upon graduation, Rose taught high school Spanish for a few years before realizing she did not see herself teaching for the next 30 years. Inspired by her college mentor, Rose decided to enroll in a student affairs master’s degree. Her practicum and internship experiences focused on working with international and undocumented students. Since graduating, she has worked as an academic advisor. Rose is an advocate for study abroad with many of her students, especially those who, like her, come from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds and think study abroad is not accessible to them. Studying abroad sparked Rose’s interest in travel, including pushing her to participate in a second study abroad program in graduate school. She has traveled all over the United States with friends and family and would like to return to Spain someday. She maintains contact with her host mother and follows social media accounts about travel and life in Spain. She has also stayed close with her study abroad friends, who get together when their lives allow and continue to share stories, reminiscences, and jokes from their time in Spain. When she reflects on her study abroad experience today, Rose remembers the mostly good ways it changed her life. Her study abroad experience “set [her] life in motion because it impacted everything.” Experiencing a new culture and immersing herself in the unfamiliar acted as a catalyst and facilitated her growth as a person. Rose credits the experience with helping her develop empathy and an open-minded orientation to other ways of living, saying, “I certainly would be another person had I never left [hometown] or done my study abroad.” 221