The Post-Sojourn in Study Abroad Research—Another Frontier

Abstract

John L. Plews, Saint Mary's UniversityThe four articles collected in this special issue of Comparative and International Education/ Education comparee et internationale are extended versions of original papers presented at the of Study Abroad for Second conference, held on July 14-17, 2015, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This conference was organized in association with the Network on Study Abroad and Learning, a special investigative sub-group of the Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquee, and financially supported by Saint Mary's University and a Connection Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The conference brought together researchers and practitioners from across the world for presentations and discussions on various facets of residence and study abroad (SA) for second languages (L2). While concerned with the broadly defined topic of culture in the SA context, the conference's call for papers emphasized five specific sub-themes: participants' / stakeholders' culture; cultural and intercultural learning (in relation to language acquisition); the post-sojourn effect of cultural learning; the cultural specificity of study abroad in and from Canada (especially regarding the French language); and the cultural interests of L2 students moving to, from, or within Asia. The articles gathered in this special issue, under the title Language and Culture after Study Abroad, derive from papers that primarily addressed the third of the aforementioned sub-themes, whose scope was to explore through empirical research and critical scholarship the afterlife of cultural, intercultural, and language learning on L2 SA programming, when participants return to their domestic universities or workplaces.1The conference's five sub-themes were chosen specifically because they were sufficiently original in scope to engage anew scholars from across the Modern Languages disciplines, Second Acquisition research, and Study Abroad and International Education sectors. That is, they were to inspire new directions in disciplinary discussion. Certainly, post-sojourn experiences-re-entry, reintegration, renegotiation, reflection, re-assessment, remembering, retelling, re-envisioning, and further renewal-represent aspects or stages of the overall SA process that are less explored in research than are pre-departure motivation and preparation, the many aspects of the in-sojourn experience, or immediate learning outcomes. This has prompted the eminent Jim Coleman (2013, p. 27) to lament that the list of studies of the long-term impact of study abroad [...] is woefully short; he lists only seven.2Indeed, beginning in the late 1960s, research into SA has traditionally focused on two areas: (1) measuring L2 proficiency and fluency, both in relation to the general SA context and also in correlation with specific qualities of the experience abroad, and (2) communicative competence;3 more recently this has been complemented by inquiries into a third area: (3) participants' intercultural development and L2 identities.4 While this research has provided insight into linguistic gains, intercultural competence, personal human development, and academic performance that generally supports the achievement of such goals through SA for most students, the standard design focus on pre- and immediate end-of-sojourn measures or in-sojourn reflection without post-sojourn follow-up means that results are limited to initial responses and short-term effects. Conclusions concerning long-term linguistic or intercultural effects, sustained shifts in individual perspectives or identity, or potential extended community benefits can be drawn only with caution from most SA research or remain indeterminable or speculative. Despite the positive inroads into understanding the multifaceted and highly variable phenomenon of SA made by innumerable scholars working across the breadth of the field for some 50 years, we know relatively little about participants' re-entry into the domestic sphere and the ongoing, perhaps reconfigured or even diminishing, real and perceived linguistic and intercultural effects of SA after returning home. …