Since 2005, the Chinese government has vigorously extended influence over American education. While well-researched in some areas, that influence is merely noted elsewhere. This report fills a gap in previous work by examining the role of Mandarin education in Communist China, how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) developed language as a tool of…

Emerging from a worldwide study of 29 U.S.-trained student affairs professionals with higher education work experience abroad, this study explored the perspectives and skills developed through working abroad. The findings of this study provide useful advocacy for this group of professionals to demonstrate their unique perspectives and critical…

Studying abroad is one way in which university students can develop personal capital and distinguish themselves in an increasingly congested graduate labour market. Data show that studying abroad indeed provides employment benefits, with evidence pointing to even greater positive effects for students from low socio-economic status backgrounds.…

Recent trends in globalization have increased the number of U.S. children and adolescents being raised outside the United States. Using the framework of adults in transition, the authors sought to understand the structure of Third Culture Kids' (TCKs), specifically Missionary Kids', transition to college. Findings indicate that participants must…

In the literature of second language teaching and learning, culture and language have always been assumed to be interdependent. Their interdependence comes from the fact that language is not a code free from culture, but an embodiment of it. However, there is still a need, from the part of teachers, to realize the importance of integrating culture…

This paper introduces a new model to represent how individuals can develop a deepened understanding of both a foreign culture and of their own culture as a result of viewing and engaging with foreign media, and in particular foreign films and television series. The model emerged from data collected in a study of how Chinese university students…

Over the last several years, the number of international students attending colleges and universities in Malaysia has increased substantially. While the number of international students pursuing undergraduate and post graduate studies in Malaysian higher education institutions has increased, it is curious that some limitations and challenges exist…

Understanding how deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) international students transition to post-secondary institutions is important for ensuring their academic and personal success. In this grounded theory study, five Saudi Arabian students who are DHH and enrolled at Gallaudet University were interviewed about their transition experience. Participants…

This paper gives account of a project involving Year Abroad students of French at Warwick University challenged to select "realia" from their host countries in order to stimulate enthusiasm for language learning in local schools. It considers the cognitive and affective processes informing the "culture gathering" that took…

This is the exposition of a Western teacher working abroad in Thailand and his coming to terms with what it means to find a home and a sense of belonging while learning to teach in an unfamiliar land and culture. A foreign teacher finds himself isolated between feelings of perceived power (as an educated Westerner) and his all too real feelings of…

This paper suggests that when a course is planned within one culture for delivery to members of another culture, appropriate quality control of assessment becomes an issue of major proportions. Based on their experience of presenting an Aid Agency-funded Masters course in a developing country in the Pacific, the authors describe the processes to…

This essay is a report on the experience of adult transformative learning under the conditions of travel to and within a foreign culture. It is written in the voices and from the perspectives of both teacher and .student. The role of both is analyzed in the context of Mezirow's criteria for transformative learning. this involves structuring the…

The political events of the last decade and the Arab Spring have made it more important than ever for Americans to understand the language, culture, and history of the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. Study abroad is one important method that can significantly increase American students' understanding of the Arabic language and the culture…

In international education the conventional wisdom, supported by research, is that more contact with a host culture yields better results for study abroad students. Such exposure to a foreign culture is seen as the "raison d'etre" for study abroad: the mechanism provoking students to challenge their ethnocentric notions and move toward a…

This book brings together academics and postgraduate students, practitioners and Ministry officials all of whom are wedded to developing an understanding of what is happening to education in the broader Middle East. They cover many countries whilst recognising that many more could have been included. In drawing attention to education in Pakistan,…