ABSTRACT
This study explores the ways music can facilitate cross-cultural transitions in academic sojourns. It builds on music’s specific capacities for emotionally rich experiences, interpersonal connection and synchronization, and universality. Focus groups and interviews with U.S. and international students reveal that music helped students to establish new routines, become open to new genres, learn about the local culture, connect to others, and manage emotions. In a similar way, music facilitated the re-entry and allowed students to memorialize the study abroad experience. Our findings suggest that music can facilitate cross-cultural transitions via individual and collective experiences of music making and listening.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all the participants for being willing to share their stories and experiences of studying abroad.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Notes on contributors
Alice Fanari
Alice Fanari is a PhD candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Her interests include intercultural, interpersonal, and positive communication that facilitates cross-cultural interactions.
Heather Gahler
Heather Gahler is a PhD student in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on the intersection between media and identity across different groups.
Tiana Case
Tiana Case is an undergraduate student in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. Her research interests are intercultural and intergroup communication and prejudice.
Hyeonchang Gim
Hyeonchang Gim is a PhD student in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. His research interests are in intergroup communication with music and media effects.
Jake Harwood
Jake Harwood (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara) is Professor of Communication. His research focuses on communication and ageing, particularly intergroup communication processes.