Research@Lincoln
    • Login
     
    View Item 
    •   Research@Lincoln Home
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • Masters Theses
    • View Item
    •   Research@Lincoln Home
    • Theses and Dissertations
    • Masters Theses
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Liminal experience in international education : a study of experimental programming in a United World College

    Arsenault, Pablo
    Abstract
    This thesis is a qualitative exploration of student experience with the international education offered at one often United World Colleges (UWC). The UWCs are a group of ideology-driven international schools (Matthews, 1989) offering a two-year residential International Baccalaureate Diploma program to students from over one hundred different countries. The focus of this study is a ten-day program which allows groups of students to participate in service or project based learning while backpacking through India. It explores student perspectives of international education, curriculum, the UWC movement and experiences with this 'project week'. It addresses the lack of research outside of formal learning situations in ideology-driven international education and explores the space between cultures in which international students are said to become suited for life in a global society (Bowman, 2001). The research sought insight into the place of project week in the broader experience of international education at a UWC through students' perceptions, accounts of lived experience, opinions and perspectives (Deegan and Hill, 1991). Instruments consisted of informal observations and semi-structured open-ended interviews with teachers and students as well as a journal based method which was discounted due to a low response rate. The study calls on literature addressing people who have spent their developmental years in culture(s) other than their own. These are discussed as 'third culture kids' (TCKs), 'mobile adolescents', 'global nomads' or 'international students'. Theories used to help understand these experiences include Simmel's 'stranger' (1950, c.1908) or socio-cultural outsider; Van Gennep's rites of passage (1960, c.1908); Turner's (1967) theory of luminal space; and Erikson (1968) and Marcia's (1980) theories of development and social moratoria. Following the suggestion that adolescence and globally mobile experiences are essentially liminal (Schaetti, 1999; Schaetti & Ramsey, 1999) the discussion frames UWC students as liminaries in anti-structural space. Theories of experiential education (Dewey, 1938; Kolb, 1984; Itin, 1999) are used to guide the enquiry into the pedagogy of the project week program. Results are suggestive of the UWC experience as one of liminality typified by the potential for creative adaptation - similar to that of the TCK - and having potential advantages if it can be oriented towards liminality itself or grounded in the local context by way of programs such as project week. Further research would be required to make substantive claims and generalized conclusions; however the study flags areas for such inquiry which should take a longitudinal qualitative approach.... [Show full abstract]
    Keywords
    international education; study abroad; international exchanges; international students; third culture kids; mobile adolescents; global nomads; stranger; social moratoria; United World College; ideology-driven international schools; International Baccalaureate; rites of passage; liminality; experiential learning; experiential education; qualitative methods
    Date
    2007
    Type
    Thesis
    Collections
    • Masters Theses [847]
    • Department of Tourism, Sport and Society [664]
    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Staff/student login to read
    arsenault_thesis.pdf
    Share this

    on Twitter on Facebook on LinkedIn on Reddit on Tumblr by Email

    Metadata
     Expand record

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Environmental factors affecting the international transfer pricing decisions of multinational enterprises : a foreign-controlled versus UK-controlled companies’ comparison 

      Oyelere, Peter B.; Emmanuel, C. R.; Forker, J. J. (Lincoln University. Commerce Division., 1999-07)
      A number of environmental factors influence the International Transfer Pricing decision processes of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The extent to which each of these factors affect the process depends on management’s ...
    • International liability and global policy implementation 

      Sheldon, Jane K. (Lincoln College, University of Canterbury, 1988)
      This project looked at the problems and potential of states’ international liability for transboundary damage as a means of implementing global policy which requires states to minimise or avoid transboundary damage. It ...
    • The importance of pre-commitment in international environmental agreements 

      MacDonald, Ian A. (Lincoln University. Commerce Division., 2001-02)
      In the face of transboundary pollution externalities, cooperation in regulatory efforts between countries is required to move the economy towards the efficient outcome. Existing research in this field concludes that such ...
    This service is maintained by Learning, Teaching and Library
    • Archive Policy
    • Copyright and Reuse
    • Deposit Guidelines and FAQ
    • Contact Us
     

     

    Browse

    All of Research@LincolnCommunities & CollectionsTitlesAuthorsKeywordsBy Issue DateThis CollectionTitlesAuthorsKeywordsBy Issue Date

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics
    This service is maintained by Learning, Teaching and Library
    • Archive Policy
    • Copyright and Reuse
    • Deposit Guidelines and FAQ
    • Contact Us