Learner subjects in study abroad: discourse of immersion, hierarchy of experience and their subversion through situated learning

Abstract

This article investigates different kinds of learner subjects that study-abroad programs produce. It is based on discourse analysis and ethnographic fieldwork in May–September 2011, involving three students from a US college studying abroad short term in Europe. The discourse of immersion in study abroad valorizes a learning-by-doing, individual, reflective learner subject who learns alone by gaining everyday experience outside the classroom and by reflecting on it. Some students subverted this discourse and became group and classroom-based learner subjects; nonetheless, they all became reflective learner subjects. This article proposes critical analysis of the discourse and links that reflectivity to critical pedagogy.

Keywords:

• study abroad
• construction of subject
• discourse of immersion
• experiential learning
• critical pedagogy
• power relations
• ethnography

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the students and members of the study-abroad organizations that participated in this research and to Ben Levy who supported my research. I also thank the editor, Dawn Butler, and anonymous reviewers of this journal for their constructive comments and Jaime Taber for proofreading the drafts. The text's deficiencies are my responsibility.