Rethinking cultural learning in education abroad

By Ingrid Gehrke. Increasingly, education abroad professionals are being asked to articulate their learning outcomes, design their programmes to realise those outcomes, and provide evidence that these learning outcomes are being realised by their students. One of the most frequently mentioned outcomes is cultural learning, which can take many forms. In this blog we take a look at how cultural learning can be nurtured in a study abroad programme.
Cultural learning can take the form of culture specific knowledge and general knowledge, cultural self-awareness, culture learning skills, and intercultural development. Based on advances in theory, research, and programme design over the past 10–15 years, we now have a much better understanding of how cultural learning in education abroad can be successfully facilitated.
If you’re interested to learn more about this subject, take a look at the following presentation to discover more about facilitating cultural learning. This presentation comes from a forthcoming EAIE Academy course in Birmingham, 15-17 April 2013.