In Their Own Words: Assessing Global Citizenship in a Short-Term Study-Abroad Program in Bangladesh

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article examines whether short-term study-abroad (STSA) experiences can cultivate the cultural understandings and ethical commitments entailed by a cosmopolitan civic education. We examine students’ critical reflections on their participation in a two-week study-abroad program titled Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Bangladesh. Based on our analysis of student reflective essays, we argue that a well-designed STSA with multiple dialogical encounters with diverse constituents in the host county can provide students with significant opportunities to deepen and complicate their understanding of themselves as citizens with local, national, and global responsibilities. We use the study trip to Bangladesh as a “high impact” case study exploring the possibilities of STSA as a form of “dialogical cosmopolitan education.”