CASA-Sevilla is a study abroad programme for US university students with an advanced level of Spanish. In recent years, new patterns of social behaviour among students (mainly the use of technology and low-cost flights) aggravated their difficulties in establishing contacts with the local society, which often resulted in the perpetuation of stereotypes. The programme goals of cultural immersion and language improvement were therefore at risk. Through an action research and a participatory organisational development process, CASA-Sevilla stakeholders carried out a profound reform of the programme, based on the principles of active pedagogy, mentoring and community-engaged learning. This section illustrates this reform process, with its highlights and shadows.
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Part 1: Active learning and intercultural competence
Action research reform of a US study abroad programme in Seville, Spain
Eva Infante Mora and Davydd J. Greenwood
Eva Infante Mora, Luisa Álvarez-Ossorio Piñero, and Bartolomé Miranda Díaz
This section of the comprehensive account of the action research and pedagogical reform of the CASA-Sevilla study-abroad programme concerns the introduction of community-engaged learning as a way to complement classroom instruction. Some experiential elements were already part of the programme’s previous design (homestays, cultural visits), but they needed to be structured into the curriculum, with clear learning goals and evaluation criteria. In addition, to palliate the obstacles students experienced when trying to establish connections with the local society, service-learning in community organisations was introduced into the core ‘Beyond Stereotypes’ course. This section describes the strategies that were designed to encourage active learning in the homestays, the cultural visits and the participation in community organisations, and the role these elements play in the new programme.
Stephanie A. Limoncelli
materials and compose reflection questions to encourage critical thinking and challenge the tendencies of some students to stereotype. They can also work towards ensuring that service-learning is structured in ways that balance student experiences and the
Eli Thorkelson, Guy Redden, Christopher Newfield, Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, and Marie-Pierre Moreau
called Latin-American and had to adjust to that all-encompassing stereotype despite having a strong Mexican identity and very little initial knowledge of the South American nations. ‘As technologies of otherness’, so Demuro writes in her chapter
Annika Strauss
are discussed and contextualised in regard to the scene. Which anxieties, fears, irritations, conflicts, projections and defence strategies are evoked by the scene? Which sociocultural practices/habitus may play a role? Which stereotypes (e
Transculturality in higher education
Supporting students’ experiences through praxis
Heidi A. Smith
mentally without acting out of stereotypes’ ( Wulf 2010: 39 ). The individual and collective experiences of similarities and differences between cultures that emerged unexpectedly caused significant discomfort and unanticipated culture shock. This
Shih-Hsiung Liu
textbook featured a gender stereotype that a mother is busy cooking in the kitchen while a father is just sitting on a sofa and reading his newspapers’. The corresponding test question was: ‘Which option among the following depicted in textbooks implies
Enacting inclusivity in the preparation of emerging scholars
A response to programme reform in higher education
Saran Stewart, Chayla Haynes, and Kristin Deal
Mountain region, my sense of self in society was categorised by stereotypic profiling of being Black in a predominantly White state. I wrote in one of my reflections that regardless of my doctoral status at the university, that on the street, ‘as much as I
‘Being TED’
The university intellectual as globalised neoliberal consumer self
Wesley Shumar
positively pointing a way forward beyond the neoliberal. In that context, TED is both positively entrepreneurial in that it is a ‘pro-social’ force, but it also reinforces stereotypical notions of entrepreneurship. And most importantly for academics, it
Heritage or hate?
A pedagogical guide to the confederate flag in post-race America
Cameron D. Lippard
Caroll 1986 ; Leib 1998 ; Lusk and Weinberg 1994 ). Moreover, research has documented that this approach stifles critical thinking, minority student dialogue and reaffirms dominant ideologies and stereotypical views as correct in the classroom ( Kelly