What Can We Learn from CIEE’s Intercultural Intervention?

Over the years, I’ve been involved with several initiatives aimed at intentionally facilitating participants’ intercultural learning before, during, and/or after an experience abroad. One of those study abroad “interventions,” as they’re sometimes called, is an intercultural course offered by CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange). This intervention is now well into its second decade of evolution, and is the subject of several publications. There’s a lot that can be learned by examining how this initiative has evolved and the research on it, so I’m bringing this information together in one place to make it easier for others to do so.

I’ll first provide some important context, then highlight (and link to) several publications about the intervention, and summarize a few key take-aways from each. I encourage anyone interested in learning more to read the original sources.

A Brief Overview

The following provides some context about CIEE’s intercultural course and how it has evolved. More details can be found in the 2012 Vande Berg et al. chapter, as well as the other publications, listed below.

• The initiative began under the direction of Dr. Michael (Mick) Vande Berg around 2005, and resulted in the development of a one-credit course called the Seminar on Living and Learning (SLL).
• The SLL was piloted at a small number of CIEE study abroad locations over the following years. It was taught on-site by resident directors or other local staff.
• Once the SLL curriculum was developed, it became obvious that the educators tasked with facilitating the course needed support. This was initially provided through one-on-one coaching and ad-hoc group training when feasible.
• When I was hired as Academic Director of Intercultural Learning in 2013, we expanded the SLL into a three-credit course and changed the name (partly to appeal more to students and partly to represent a curriculum intended to fulfill course requirements in communication) to Intercultural Communication and Leadership (ICL).
• As the number of locations and instructors involved increased, we had to come up with a more efficient and consistent way of training instructors. Before leaving CIEE in 2016, I developed an online training, which later evolved into a more formalized six-week asynchronous virtual instructor training program.

The Publications

Vande Berg, M., Quinn, M., & Menyhart, C. (2012). An experiment in developmental teaching and learning: The Council on International Educational Exchange's Seminar on Living and Learning Abroad. In M. Vande Berg, R. M. Paige & K. H. Lou (Eds.), Student learning abroad: What our students are learning, what they're not, and what we can do about it (pp. 383-407). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Harvey, T.A. (2013). Facilitating intercultural development during study abroad: A case study of CIEE’s Seminar on Living and Learning Abroad. Unpublished dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.

Gibson, A., Spira-Cohen, E., Sherman, W., & Namaste, N. (2023). Guided disorientation for transformative study abroad: Impacts on intercultural learning. Studies in Higher Education, 48(8), 1-15. 

Namaste, N., Sherman, W., Gibson, A., & Spira-Cohen, E. (2024). Intercultural professional development for educators: Applying intercultural learning to enhance effectiveness. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 36(1), 280-311.

Sherman, W., Namaste, N., Gibson, A. & Spira-Cohen, E. (2024). Essential to students’ intercultural learning abroad? Faculty intercultural development as key to leverage effective pedagogies. To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, 43(2), 279-312.

Publication Highlights

2012: Chapter in Student Learning Abroad Book

The chapter by Vande Berg, Quinn & Menyhart, published in 2012, provides a useful overview of why the SLL was created, how it was developed, and what the original one-credit course entailed. The authors discuss students’ initial responses to the course and how marketing evolved during the early years to try to increase interest (note that this also prompted several of the later changes to the course format and title).

A key insight from the early years of the SLL that’s highlighted in the chapter is the importance of providing intercultural training to course instructors. The authors write:

The single most important step that an institution or organization needs to take in designing and delivering a course such as the seminar is to invest heavily in the training of instructors. (Vande Berg et al., 2012, p. 405)

 
2013: My Dissertation

My PhD dissertation focused on the SLL around the same time. It was the first study to look not just at the quantitative outcomes of a study abroad intervention, but to also qualitatively explore the process of facilitating students’ intercultural learning and development while they’re abroad. In fall 2010, I visited two locations where the SLL was being piloted, where I sat in on several sessions of the course, interviewed the students and instructors, and analyzed pre-/post-program Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) data, in addition to interviewing the creators/administrators of the course.

My research questions were:

1. In what ways does a study abroad intervention affect students’ intercultural development?
   • What aspects of the intervention do the administrators, instructors, and students each consider the most supportive of intercultural development? What aspects do they consider the most challenging?
   • Regarding intercultural development, what are the administrators’, instructors’, and students’ perceptions of the role of the following four specific aspects of the intervention: the milieu, the instructor, the students, and the curriculum?
2. Apart from the intervention itself, what other aspects of the experience do the students consider to be supportive of their intercultural development?

The findings are too extensive to easily summarize here, but overall suggest that intervening in students’ intercultural learning abroad is a complex but meaningful endeavor. They support the idea that a strong curriculum is a necessary but insufficient condition for success, and emphasize the importance of developing skilled facilitators. I discuss how this extends beyond instructors of a study abroad intervention:

I would suggest that if we really want to change the landscape of study abroad to one that focuses on students’ learning and development, we would provide such training not just for those faculty and staff teaching a study abroad intervention, but for everyone involved with study abroad participants from initial application through re-entry. Obviously, this would be a huge undertaking that would require a good deal of time and resources. However, this study suggests that doing so could not only help study abroad staff develop their own intercultural sensitivity, which indirectly affects students, but could also positively influence how they interact with students in general and cause broader ripple effects throughout their program and organization. (Harvey, 2013, p. 278-279)

The study also illuminates what intercultural teaching and learning can look like in practice, and highlights the importance of certain intercultural pedagogies.

2023: Gibson et al. Article

More recently, a large-scale study—conducted by Anne Gibson, Nina Namaste, Whitney Sherman, and Ezra Spira-Cohen—examined pre- and post-program IDI data from 1,858 undergraduate students who took the ICL course from 2014-2019, and a control group of 109 study abroad participants who didn’t take course. Three separate publications—one led by Gibson (2023), another by Namaste (2024), and the third by Sherman (2024)—highlight different elements of that study.

The first publication, led by Gibson, highlights the fact that IDI gains were significantly greater for students enrolled in the course than the control group, leading the researchers to conclude, “Findings show that cultural mentorship via trained, skilled instructors is more important than other factors associated with intercultural learning while abroad” (Gibson et al., 2023, p. 1).

The researchers also found that disorienting dilemmas create important opportunities for transformation and intercultural development, but for learning to occur, it must be intentionally facilitated. The authors explain that students have the greatest potential for learning when they experience “heightened moments of cultural disorientation in unfamiliar cultural contexts” coupled with “experienced facilitators to guide them through reflection around intercultural differences” (Gibson et al., 2023, p. 1).

Lacking the latter, the experience could instead lead to stereotyping. Gibson et al. warn that without guided reflection, students might revert to prior ways of knowing based on their own worldviews, resulting in possible stereotyping and missed opportunities for transformation. They explain:

[T]he power of this experience (and attendant challenge) can go the other way too. Without proper support, students who come in contact with new practices, poverty, or different cultural norms from their own may regress to employing stereotypes, feel shame for their privilege, and back away from experiences that provide opportunity for more interaction with diverse groups. This research suggests that effective instructor facilitation makes a critical difference in how the students will develop during and after an instructor-led program. (Gibson et al., 2023, p. 19)

This supports earlier findings—such as those discussed in my dissertation—recognizing the importance of balancing the challenge and support students experience to promote optimal intercultural learning.

2024: Namaste et al. Article

The two 2024 publications explore the impacts of the six-week asynchronous virtual instructor training program. The purpose of the study led by Namaste was to better understand what the instructors believe, think, and do that impacts their effectiveness in fostering students' intercultural learning in the ICL course, paying particular attention to how their own mentoring affects their efforts to facilitate students’ intercultural development.

The researchers found that the professional development provided by CIEE “was fundamental in developing instructors' own intercultural skills, which then impacted the way in which they intentionally developed their students' intercultural development” (Namaste, 2024, p. 289-290). The authors conclude:

As our study indicates, educators' intentionally mentored intercultural development impacts their pedagogical agility and effectiveness in fostering students' intercultural learning, and in light of the current unrealized potential of study abroad, we urge that ALL faculty and practitioners connected to international education participate in and deepen their own intercultural development. (Namaste, 2024, p. 301)

2024: Sherman et al. Article

For the most recent article, just published in the fall of 2024, the research team analyzed the 22 instructor interviews in greater depth. They examined the impacts of the professional development program on instructors, and explored how participation affected the pedagogical tactics instructors employed.  

Qualitative interviews with course instructors reveal that the professional development program—which focuses on their own intercultural development—“helped educators leverage pedagogies to effectively foster students’ intercultural learning” (Sherman et al., 2024, p. 1).

The researchers found that the instructors’ own learning and development contributed to greater capacity to employ intercultural pedagogies, and when they saw the impacts that had on their learners, it reinforced their motivation to continue what they were doing.

In addition, instructors reported that developing their own intercultural competence and facilitation skills had benefits outside the classroom and beyond study abroad. For example, Sherman et al. found that most educators interviewed “noted that intercultural learning was interwoven in each and every interaction with their students, whether in or out of the class, which allowed them to intervene and question students’ emotional responses and interpretations of situations with the target country cultures” (p. 294).

The researchers point out the applicability of their findings to home campus contexts, stating:

Another major implication of this study is that as individuals build a foundation of strong intercultural competence that is rooted in deep self-awareness work, cultural bridging activities, and critical moment dialogues, they are better primed to engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. (Sherman et al., 2024, p. 302)

This is critical because as the complexity and breadth of diversity expands, so does the need to help faculty and staff develop their capacity for facilitating difficult dialogues and intercultural learning—not just abroad, but at home as well.

Conclusion

Some of the key take-aways educators can learn from CIEE’s ICL course include:

• Confirmation of the importance of intervening in students’ learning during an intercultural experience.
• A good intercultural curriculum is necessary but insufficient. The intercultural development and facilitation skills of the instructors are critical.
• Therefore, colleges, universities, and study abroad providers need to prioritize intercultural training for faculty and staff—training that focuses on developing educators’ own intercultural competence and their capacity to implement intercultural pedagogies.
• Such training has positive impacts on other aspects of educators’ lives and work as well. Therefore, we should consider providing intercultural training not just to those leading study abroad, but also to educators in other areas of higher education.
• Students may not initially see the value of participating in a study abroad intervention. Educators need to think critically about how to increase buy-in and participation.
• When explored in more depth, the publications outlined here can also help educators better understand the process of intercultural learning and teaching.

If you’re an educator interested in building intercultural capacity—personally and/or at your institution—I invite you to check out the professional development program, Facilitating Intercultural Learning. It’s a twelve-week, cohort-based learning experience for educators that I created based on my own experiences designing curriculum, facilitating intercultural learning among students, and supporting faculty and staff in this endeavor. The program helps educators (1) develop their own intercultural competence, and (2) build the capacity to design and facilitate others’ learning across cultures (whether at home or abroad, inside or outside the classroom, with students or colleagues). I offer a public cohort each fall and spring semester, and institutions can contract private cohorts for larger groups. Click here to learn more about Facilitating Intercultural Learning.

Photo credit: Tim Mossholder, Unsplash