Structural competence beyond global competence: overcoming the culturalist difference framework in study abroad

ABSTRACT

This article revisits the notion of difference used in global education, especially study abroad. It suggests a new framework for study abroad to counter its prevalent notions of immersion and global competence that are based on and perpetuate the static notion of difference among discrete units of ‘culture’. I introduce the Commodity Project, which nurtures students’ ability to perceive the world as fluid and made of multi-layered global connections shaped by wider structural arrangements and act as agents of change. I call this ability ‘structural competence’ and suggest it as an alternative to global competence. Study abroad experience can then be seen as shaped by global connections instead of by an independently developed culture of the destination. This article examines three students’ Commodity Projects, illustrating how such a project can be carried out before, during, after, and even without – as may become important during pandemic – studying abroad.

KEYWORDS:

• Culturalism
• difference
• global connections
• immersion
• structural competence
• study abroad

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for Dr. Balmurli Natrajan for generously sharing his insightful class project ideas and those who participated in this research. I also thank Jaime Taber and Hanako Musha Doerr for copyediting and the editor and anonymous reviewers of the journal, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, for critical and constructive comments. The text’s deficiencies are wholly my responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).