Exploring the role of study abroad in decolonising geography curricula

ABSTRACT

Studying abroad has the potential to contribute to wider processes of curriculum decolonisation. More often than not, however, it can actually serve to recolonise and reproduce multiscalar forms of privilege, with the majority of programs seeing students either move between countries in the Global North or from the Global South to the North. In particular, our research has found that while students desire geographical distance from their study abroad programs, many seek cultural proximity and with it a sense of security grounded in simplistic and essentialist imaginative geographies. There is, however, a small but growing trend of North-to-South study, which arguably has greater decolonial potential, but, as we show, can often still lead to recolonisation through enclavic forms of engagement. Drawing on longitudinal mixed methods research, we point to three crucial sites of intervention which we relate to Kolb’s cycle of experiential learning – pre-trip, the trip itself, and post-trip – highlighting practical and transferable tips for study abroad staff to increase student’s capacities for reflexivity and experiential learning, and with it maximise the decolonial potential of studying abroad.

KEYWORDS:

• Study abroad
• decolonisation
• experiential learning

Introduction

The chance to “study abroad” is at the heart of many geography programs, be it the shorter field trip/study tour or a longer semester/year abroad. This is part of a wider growth in study abroad across subjects and higher education contexts. For example, in the UK from where we write, outward student mobility increased by 32.1% from 2015/16 to 2018/19 when, in a pre-pandemic high, almost 50,000 students studied abroad (UUK, 2022), while in the USA this figure was closer to 350,000 (Open Doors, 2023).¹ But in the face of this often-corporatised growth (Biles & Lindley, 2009), how does studying abroad fit with much-needed and long-overdue calls to decolonise the curricula and pedagogies that underpin/reproduce our discipline? (For recent disciplinary decolonial discussions see: Laing, 2021; Milner, 2020.) While study abroad can be a great experience and career development opportunity (especially for students with fewer resources and opportunities: Tarrant et al., 2014), it can also reinscribe privilege and reproduce transnational class structures at individual and global scales (King et al., 2011; Waters, 2012). Similarly, although access to new forms of teaching and learning and the cross-cultural experience can prove hugely beneficial and liberating for students, wider concerns remain around framing study abroad uncritically through a lens of “global citizenship” (Lutterman-Aguilar & Gingerich, 2002; cf.; Brooks & Waters, 2010). Not only are benefits for host countries and communities regularly overlooked but also often the wider structures that shape studying abroad are insufficiently interrogated (Madge et al., 2009), and schemes can unintentionally reinforce the colonial structures of whiteness they claim to challenge (Naidu et al., 2023; Pennington, 2020).

The quest for a “world-class” education, be that among mobile students based in the Global North (the vast majority of outward mobility from Northern institutions is to other countries in the Global North) or those millions from the South who come to study in the North, perpetuates a sense of superiority about certain Northern/Western pedagogies (Findlay et al., 2012).² This discourse of “study abroad as global citizenship” must therefore be understood critically and trouble preconceived ideas of “global prestige” in higher education (Abdi, 2015; Tarrant et al., 2014) that implicitly and invisibly recentre Northern/Western epistemologies and pedagogies by portraying them as neutral and universal (Andreotti, 2011): precisely the process of (re)colonisation against which the decolonial has emerged. Operating at the intersections of knowledge and power, universities are thus crucial sites in the struggle for decolonisation, but must themselves be decolonised, an ongoing and imperfect struggle given the inherently colonial foundations of the academy (Bhambra et al., 2018). It is within this space that this paper positions itself.

Given these tensions, unsurprisingly, studying abroad has been a rich topic for geographical study (see Biles & Lindley, 2009). This research emphasises a further ambivalence at the heart of study abroad, with international students variously (even simultaneously) courted/desired and demonised/unwanted (King & Raghuram, 2013). It is also crucial to note the particularities of student mobility and that international students should neither be exceptionalised nor analysed separately from wider migration studies. Relatedly, it is also important to recognise that students are heterogeneous and each occupy multiple positionalities (e.g. student, worker, and family member: Raghuram, 2013), in order to push back against essentialist, racialised, and colonial stereotypes of South-North international students (Madge et al., 2009). Buttressing this is the implicit coding of the “global citizen” (the Northern student abroad) as white and from an elevated class position (Findlay et al., 2012; Schulz & Agnew, 2020). Taken together, it is thus clear how colonial power relations are reinforced externally, but research has shown how these are also often strengthened internally by international students themselves who frequently rely on, and reproduce, essentialising imaginative geographies (Beech, 2014; Kölbel, 2020). Therefore, while studying abroad may have decolonial possibilities, all too often it does the exact opposite. Critical post- and de-colonial analysis help combat some of these issues (Madge et al., 2009), and so engagement with these framings can help students short-circuit unintentional colonial stereotypes (Breen, 2012).

Drawing on a longitudinal, mixed-methods approach, this paper explores our attempts as study abroad officers³ – operating in, but also hopefully against-and-beyond, the colonial context of a UK School of Geography – to maximise decolonial potential through a focus on “experiential learning” (Kolb, 1984). Our undergraduate students are able to study abroad for the first semester of their second (penultimate) year. Like many other institutions, we offer mobility through several international schemes to countries across the Global North, but our students are also able to study at campuses in China and Malaysia, a type of North-South mobility that is much less frequently discussed (see Gilbertson et al., 2021; Schulz & Agnew, 2020). While we primarily illustrate that both de- and re-colonial opportunities are greater with this rarer, North-South mobility, we also discuss the potential benefits and challenges of UK home students travelling to settler-colonial contexts (cf. Breen, 2012). In particular, we highlight three key periods for intervention (pre-trip, the trip itself, and post-trip) relating these to Kolb’s (1984) reflective model of experiential learning. Pre-trip, work with students is needed to decolonise their imaginative geographies, develop reflexive skills through interrogating their positionality and motivations and helping them think carefully about module choices. During the trip itself, learning diaries and check-ins help ensure experiential learning is underpinned by critical reflection. Finally, post-trip, there is significant value in debriefing interviews and reengaging with the reflexive positionality mapping exercises carried out before students left.

Ultimately, we argue that to maximise the decolonial potential of study abroad it is about what students can unlearn (Schulz & Agnew, 2020), and therefore we need to ensure that students are “hyper-self-reflexive” (Clare, 2017). But this is not easy, and so it is incumbent on us as critical educators to help students through appropriate “scaffolding” (Milner, 2020) throughout the entire process, from application all the way through to re-integration. But without this, the risks of unreflexive experiential learning are significant, which can essentialise, exocticise, and recolonise (Doerr, 2012, 2013). The next section reviews pedagogical literature on studying abroad, experiential learning, and the relationship to decolonisation, before, after a short methodology, we present our findings and conclusions.

Literature review

Geographical and pedagogical research into studying abroad is part of the broader literature of international student mobility (ISM). This literature has grown rapidly in recent years, with focus converging around the globalisation of education, studying abroad as global citizenship, and, building on the work of Bourdieu, the ways in which student mobility reflects processes of human capital formation and accumulation (Findlay et al., 2012; King et al., 2011; Tarrant et al., 2014; Waters, 2012). From this perspective, studying abroad helps students “access new forms of capital” relating to their immediate university education and their long-term employment opportunities (Beech, 2014, p. 171; Findlay et al., 2012). As King et al. (2011, p. 178) explain, studying abroad allows students to accumulate intersecting forms of human, social, and cultural capital by accessing new forms of education, cultivating diverse social networks, gaining new travel experiences, and deepening their cultural awareness. Large swathes of the ISM literature have therefore been devoted to understanding this process of capital accumulation and the “added value of study abroad” (Tarrant et al., 2014), arguing that equally important as the acquisition of “formal knowledges” while studying abroad are the “socially and culturally constructed knowledges” which exist beyond the classroom (Findlay et al., 2012, p. 128).

Explicit geographical research has departed from narrowly assessing the benefits of study abroad, while simultaneously critiquing the more straightforward analysis of push/pull factors behind student mobility (Beech, 2015), and begun to problematise its uneven role in reinforcing harmful discourses of internationalisation, globalisation, and neoliberalisation (Biles & Lindley, 2009). Aside from highlighting how geography underpins the causes, process, and outcomes of studying abroad (Beech, 2014), this burgeoning field of research advances important questions on how mobility reshapes preconceived identities and positionalities in potentially transformative albeit uneven ways (Prazeres, 2013). In this sense, and adopting a relational geographical approach, studying abroad becomes less about encountering new contexts and cultures, and more about encountering oneself (Dolby, 2004).

Important here is the concept of ‘’’imaginative geographies’, with Kölbel (2020) exploring how they shape the decision-making process of where students choose to study abroad, and Beech (2014, p. 170) similarly demonstrating how “students are influenced by more than the economic in their decision of where to study”. Relatedly, Prazeres (2013) discusses how studying abroad does not necessarily challenge or disrupt these geographical imaginaries but rather reinforces them. In this vein, geographers critique the notion that students inevitably “return home with their eyes open in a different way” (Schoch, 2008, p. 7) and, by dissecting their role in reproducing and exacerbating social and spatial inequalities (Waters, 2012), are attempting to develop more progressive study abroad programs (Biles & Lindley, 2009).

Specific to our research, studies have begun to explore the uneven pedagogical experiences of different study abroad programs. In this respect, focusing on “credit” not just “degree” mobility Engle and Engle (2003) developed a useful typology of study abroad programs. This typology has five levels and moves from Study Tours (a few weeks or less), to Short-Term Study (between three and eight weeks), to Cross-Cultural Contact Programs (typically one semester), to Cross-Cultural Encounter and Cross-Cultural Immersion Programs (between a semester and an academic year). While the duration of visits is a key component that shapes the level of immersion, other components are also listed as changing across these levels, including the extent to which the host language is used in learning, the nature of accommodation, the types of cultural interaction, and the degree to which guided reflection on the overall experience are encouraged and provided by the host or returning institution (Engle & Engle, 2003, p. 10).

This typology helps facilitate a more granular analysis into the inherent variegation of study abroad programs, allowing educators to reflect on uneven teaching and learning experiences. For example, Lemmons (2015, p. 551) shows that shorter study abroad programs “are not meeting the assumptions placed upon them”, as limited opportunities for meaningful immersive interactions mean that students struggle to develop deeper cultural understandings and challenge preconceived geographical imaginaries. The argument is that longer forms of study abroad increase the opportunity for experiential learning (Lutterman-Aguilar & Gingerich, 2002; cf. Kolb, 1984), as the variation in experience, teaching styles, and assessment formats, among other experiences, can increase pedagogical reflexivity (Itin, 1999) through disrupting “signatures” (Chick et al., 2012). Experiential learning seeks to deepen understanding by focusing on the application and integration of knowledge through a reflexive process of learning-by-doing, an approach used widely by geographical educators (see Tchoukaleyska et al., 2022). Kolb’s (1984) cycle of experiential learning is therefore crucial for our analysis, as we consider how students’ “abstract conceptualisation”, “active experimentation” “concrete experience”, and “reflective observation”, present opportunities to de- and/or re-colonise curricula.

Based on this, our research supports a small yet growing body of work that explicitly engages with the decolonial elements of student mobility (Craig, 2022; Gilbertson et al., 2021; Schulz & Agnew, 2020). Emergent pedagogical research has begun to outline the importance of decolonising university curricula and how this process might unfold (Le Grange, 2016). In relation to student mobility, this means assessing how study abroad programs may support transformative processes of decolonisation, or in contrast, reinforce them. Acknowledging how study abroad programs are “embedded within structures of social class reproduction and elite formation” (King et al., 2011: 165), research must critically assess the specific ways in which they enable privileged students to maintain and extend their social and economic advantages (Brooks & Waters, 2009, p. 1087), and how this militates against decolonisation. Much of this research extends the work of Lawson (2005), who when calling for geographers to rethink approaches to internationalisation, encouraged researchers to centre knowledge systems and perspectives from the Global South.

The ubiquity of decoloniality as a concept has, however, raised issues (Jazeel, 2017), as the rapidity with which it has been mainstreamed has, arguably, hollowed it out, reducing a powerful, radical, and necessary movement to mere metaphor (Tuck & Yang, 2012). This has led to a pernicious process of recolonisation dressed up in decolonial language (Noxolo, 2017), perpetuated through the globalisation of higher education (Samier, 2020). Pedagogically, and to negate further erosion of its meaning, it is therefore crucial to recognise that decolonisation is active and processual (Le Grange, 2016), rather than an objective to be achieved or a problem to be solved. This process requires educators to reconstruct elements of their explicit, hidden, and null curricula (Eisner, 2002). The explicit curriculum is the planned educational content directly taught and provided by institutions. The hidden curriculum refers to the different values and principles that do not form part of the formal plan of teaching but are taught to students through the development of particular cultures and norms (e.g. the virtues of hard work). The null curriculum covers what an institution does not teach, which, for Eisner, may be as, if not more, important as what is taught (2002). Decolonisation therefore requires focus across all of these related curricula (Le Grange, 2019), yet disproportionate focus is placed on the explicit as this is easiest to change in a visible fashion, with performative efforts often made to decolonise reading lists. Conversely, almost by definition hidden and null curricula are harder to interrogate (Gunio, 2021) and thus potentially decolonise, and, with changes being less immediate and obvious, they can fall by the wayside for those seeking a quick and public fix. This often-devalued work is, however, central to rendering visible the implicit structures such as whiteness and heteronormativity (Castro and Sujak, 2014) that (re)produce coloniality, a crucial first step in any decolonial efforts. Returning to experiential learning, it is also important to consider on the “lived” curricula and how this is shaped by life beyond the classroom and time abroad (Tillett & Cushing-Leubner, 2021).

We use this multi-curricula framework to critically assess the “imperial model” of higher education and how different parts of the curriculum can be reconceived (Le Grange, 2016, 2019). Adopting this framework of understanding is also central to combating “epistemicide”, the “murder of knowledge” and the systematic killing and repression of non-Western knowledge systems (Santos, 2014, p. 92). As a result of the unreflexive ignorance only afforded to European scholarship, there has long been an imperious, latent, and uninterrogated positivism that drives epistemicide (Bennett, 2007). This is now perpetuated by the Anglophone academic publishing industrial complex and the monocultural globalisation of higher education, in which study abroad plays a crucial role (Bennett, 2015). A focus on indigenous knowledges and participatory research can combat epistemicide (Hall & Tandon, 2017); however, it remains vital to guard against the re-colonisation of decolonial language and practice through their subsumption into the colonial academy (Roberts et al., 2024). Efforts to combat “curriculum epistemicide” (Paraskeva, 2016) therefore require the critical and reflexive multi-curricula approach outlined above. For example, as Eisner (2002, p. 97) states in relation to the null curriculum, “ignorance is not simply a neutral void”, and such a framework therefore allows us to practically engage with debates concerning epistemological “racism” and “blindness” that are central to the ongoing colonial project, as well as consider the need for students to engage with and develop a pluralistic “ecology of knowledges” (Andreotti, 2011).

It is our argument that studying abroad can support the decolonisation of university curricula but not uncritically and not without thoughtful pedagogical intervention (Lemmons, 2015). The crucial factor is that students are learning not just going abroad (Blanco Ramírez, 2013). This is not to say that the benefits only come from the classroom, instead that the experiential extends beyond the classroom. Doing this develops not only lived but also “transgressive” curricula (Subedi, 2013; Tillett & Cushing-Leubner, 2021) and disrupt attachment to signature pedagogies (Chick et al., 2012). Again, circumspection is required in order to not just lapse back into the liberal, cosmopolitan ideas of global citizenship education, which reproduce a transnational class (Abdi, 2015). Equally important is avoiding basing programs around “adventure” which may implicitly denigrate the classroom curriculum of the host country (Doerr, 2012, 2013). Moreover, there is a danger that uncritical experiential learning generates “empowered”, globally mobile students that learn in an extractive, colonial way which implicitly recentres the home education system as superior. As Doerr (2013, p. 239) puts it: “This suggests that the notion of ‘learning-by-doing’ often associated with empowering students can construct the unwitting ‘teachers’ – the hosts who ‘practice the culture’ – as immobile and powerless”. It is in this context that uncritical study abroad, especially if done North-South, accentuates pre-existing hierarchies, but if students are encouraged and supported to be “hyper-self-reflexive” and actively confront their own, complex positionalities (Raghuram, 2013; cf. Clare, 2017), there is significantly more decolonial potential.

Methodology

There is a shortage of qualitative, case study-focused research into the pedagogical underpinnings of study abroad (McLeod & Wainwright, 2009). Recognising this, we adopted a longitudinal, mixed method approach to this project, using semi-structured interviews and focus groups as well as a survey which featured both closed and open questions. Over four years of mobility (from the 2019/20 to 2022/23 academic years), 18 interviews were conducted with students upon their return from studying abroad (we discuss the specific value of such debrief interviews below) as well as one five-student focus group that took place before their trip to Malaysia. Aware of our positionality as study abroad advisors and the potential power dynamics involved, it was made clear to students that their participation was entirely voluntary, and they would be completely anonymised.⁴ Complementing this focus group and the interviews was an online survey comprised of 17 questions, including basic demographic detail, ranking questions, and open-ended text boxes which featured a consent form at its start before any further questions could be answered. This survey was sent to all students and intentionally designed to gauge the opinion of a wider group, including those without the interest or resources to study abroad, to mitigate against issues of the self-selecting nature of the interviews and focus groups.

Given the intersecting roles that class, race, and social networks/capital play in shaping the study abroad experience (see Simon & Ainsworth, 2012), our hope was that the survey questions and, in particular, open-ended responses, would elicit responses from underrepresented groups – especially considering that, of the 23 students who engaged with the interviews and focus groups, only three were from minoritised racial backgrounds. In the end, we received a significant 118 responses from students of all years of undergraduate study, and while the demographics of our respondents were less diverse than we had hoped, rather than (just) a limitation to the research, we believe this in fact supports the arguments made in this paper and the wider literature regarding study abroad and the (re)production of privilege (King et al., 2011; Waters, 2012).⁵ In particular, all participants (across the interviews, focus groups, and survey) were home students who were defined as British, with 85% of all survey respondents white, no survey respondents defining as Black, and the largest minoritised group being the nine students with Indian heritage. Survey respondents were able to select their own gender identity, with 80 students defining as female and 48 as male, a similar ratio to the interviews and focus groups where 14 of the 23 participants were women and the remaining seven men. 25% of the survey respondents went to fee-paying schools compared to a national average of 5.9%, and only 6% received free school meals⁶ during their primary/secondary education compared to the national level where 23.8% of children are eligible. Given the power dynamic and lack of anonymity in the interviews we chose not to explicitly ask students about their socio-economic background, but some students opted to bring this up themselves, as highlighted in some of the quotations below.

Interview and focus group data were transcribed and then thematically coded using NVivo software which allowed both authors to contribute to the analysis. All interviewees who signed consent forms prior to the interviews, have been numbered for anonymity, and we include details of where they studied abroad for context. The research received ethical approval from both the Schools of Geography and Education at the University of Nottingham.

Geographical distance, cultural proximity

In this section, we examine student motivations for studying abroad and how these relate to often reductive, colonially inflected imaginative geographies (Beech, 2014). In particular, we unpack the fuzzy, ambivalent, and, at times, contradictory, role that “culture”⁷ plays in the student imagination, as well as the disconnect between students’ purported interests and their actual applications. When asked about their motivations for studying abroad, survey respondents overwhelmingly placed “Experiencing a new culture” (72%) and “The chance to travel” (69%) as their top two, however, digging further into the qualitative responses and interviews/focus groups told a slightly different story. In fact, students often found safety in cultural proximity, as one returning student put it:

What appealed [about Australia and the USA] was that they are obviously quite international … but that they would have similar things to the UK like chain restaurants. I know it sounds silly but if you’re going somewhere you want maybe some kind of compatibility

(Interviewee 2, USA)

Similar sentiments were echoed by many survey respondents saying things like: “Similar to home but still different. Always wanted to travel there. No language barrier” (Survey respondent (SR) 29) in reference to Australia and, justifying Canada as their top pick, SR55 said “Speaking English, lovely people with a similar culture, safe country with low crime rates”.

For the majority of students we spoke to, therefore, despite the claim that there was a desire to experience a new culture, the “newness” of the culture seemed directly related to geographical distance. Referring once more to Australia, SR71 summed it up perfectly: “It’s the furthest destination from home (UK) … Always wanted to visit, similar culture.” What is more, it became clear across the responses was also a slightly simplistic conflation between “culture” and climate/landscape, with the destination’s weather consistently provided as evidence of cultural difference, once more illustrating essentialist imaginative geographies (even about other countries in the Global North⁸). Relatedly, there was very little interest in the European study abroad options (including Sweden, Germany, France, and Ireland) which, despite some arguably having larger cultural differences than Canada and Australia, were deemed to be: “Too close to home not much diverging culture” (SR10) or “Not different enough from the UK – would not feel as invigoratingly surreal” (SR26). The same locations, however, were also flagged as unappealing (often by the same people) due to language – “English-speaking” was one of the most important criteria for location choice. “culture” was thus central to students’ decision-making, yet invoked in confusing and contradictory ways, and what is more the idea of cultural difference was typically much more appealing than the reality.

The picture was muddied further through responses to the survey question which asked students to choose one destination not currently available to them. 42% (n = 50) of respondents chose European destinations (predominantly Italy and Spain⁹), regularly invoking “culture”, “weather”, and “food” as their motivations, as well as, confusingly, the opportunity to learn a new language – as above, often the same student was both keen and unwilling to learn a new language. Beyond these European destinations, the single most common option was New Zealand (19%, n = 22) (which, revealingly, was framed almost identically to Australia), but countries in the Global South across Latin America, Asia, and Africa were mentioned by 31% of students (n = 37), with their cultural differences given as their most appealing factor. In a seeming contradiction, respondents who chose these countries were often exactly the same people who had invoked “cultural similarity” as being behind their choice of the USA, Australia, or Canada as their top destinations. It is clear, therefore, that even among students’ imaginative geographies, there was a difference between their hypothetical and actual preferences, with students often overstating their desire for a new and different experience. This became even more noticeable among those that actually apply with very few students choosing locations other than USA, Australia, and Canada, typically following what Lemmons (2015) describes as the path of least resistance.

As geographical educators, it is incumbent on us to work with students to trouble reductive and essentialising imaginative geographies, especially those that can reinforce colonial stereotypes. This point was made by one student in their return interview:

I guess one barrier that I noticed was that a lot of my friends who were interested couldn’t get past the initial sense of nervousness of studying abroad. Especially somewhere which has a completely different language and culture can be appealing but also equally daunting at the same time, I know a few people were interested in studying in more “exotic” countries but their initial anxiety around going somewhere completely new stopped them … So maybe for those students wanting to go to these places, they could have a couple of sessions in Nottingham that introduces them for example, to some basic language and some cultural expectations of their chosen country … otherwise a lot of people may be restricted to English speaking countries and have less opportunity to develop a culturally enriched global mindset.

(Interviewee 15, Japan)

Many of the seeming contradictions above stem from a lack of knowledge and critical engagement from students, something which should melt away through exposure to post- and de-colonial pedagogy. This is why pre-trip it is important to work with students to help build their confidence and add nuance to their understandings of culture and what experiences can be expected in different countries. Returning to Kolb, this pre-trip decision period is one of “abstract conceptualisation” for the students, and support and scaffolding is needed¹⁰ to push students towards more decolonial understandings of the world, including for those only idly considering the opportunity to study abroad. But this process must also be reflexive, actively pushing students to consider their positionality and how this might relate to their study abroad choices. The next section unpacks this with a specific focus on those students who carried out North-South mobility to our Malaysian and Chinese campuses.

Studying in the enclave

North-South mobility remains relatively rare, and so the ability for students to study at campuses in Malaysia and China was, in many ways, the motivator for this project. Mobility to China has historically been limited, with students frequently citing political concerns (SR65 “I would feel quite unsafe with the human rights incidents and current issues on freedom of expression, religion, and mass surveillance”), language barrier, and prospective culture shock. Malaysia, on the other hand, has been a very popular destination (we explain more reasons for this below). Interestingly, the majority of the students who opted for these inter-campus mobility options were from less well-off backgrounds¹¹ and placed a greater emphasis on the career-development aspects of mobility than the more hedonistic motivations that are often seen as driving more privileged students (Beech, 2014), as well as the cheaper costs of living and extra bursaries offered by the University to encourage more inter-campus mobility:

Australia [is] so expensive, like the people I knew [who went there] didn’t even get people to cover [the cost of their home accommodation while away]. They were rich so they didn’t get people to cover their accommodation they just paid for both, and I was desperate to make sure that mine was covered … China was really good for Geography with Business … China was so much more of an opportunity.

(Interviewee 8, China Campus)

Students who chose these campus options also tended not to have the extensive, transnational family and social networks of the more privileged students (see Beech, 2015; Brooks & Waters, 2010) and, with historically less opportunity to travel, were keen to really maximise what they saw as a unique opportunity.

It’s something that because I’ve come from not necessarily … I haven’t come from a very poor background … but not the sort of great backgrounds [many other students do]. I only really travelled in Europe and not much on a family holiday. So I want[ed] to kind of push the boundaries … .Malaysia [was] much [more] affordable… I just wanted to be able to go to those places I’ve never been before.

(Interviewee 12, Malaysia Campus)

It is important, however, to focus on the role of the campuses here, as these served as enclavic, almost-neocolonial outposts. Students mentioned that the extra safety of the campuses was important, functioning almost like a cultural life-raft that enabled them to dip their toe into the Global South: “Because the Nottingham campus is there, it immediately seems like the transition would be smoother” (SR3); “I’d love to go to Asia, and a Nottingham campus abroad seems like a safe option.” (SR47). The campuses, therefore, often offered a perfect middle-ground, enabling just the right amount of cultural difference while retaining home comforts. In fact, one student explicitly framed their choice of the Malaysia campus in these terms: “Different and exciting culture but not completely out of my depth (big ex-pat community and English-speaking people)” (SR3).

This begs a serious question about this North-South mobility, as while the campus-as-enclave increases the likelihood of students wanting to study in non-Northern locations, the consequences are arguably more re- than de-colonial. We still witness overwhelmingly reductive imaginative geographies, with Asia an exotic yet unsafe other often only made inhabitable by a neocolonial campus. As with the desires and motivations for studying abroad above, it is therefore important to push back against these stereotypes and help students make more informed choices about where they might like to study and why. Even if they ultimately decide against mobility, this will still add nuance to their geographical understanding and hopefully contribute to wider pedagogical efforts through more-critical, less-abstract conceptualisation. Relatedly, it is also important to encourage students to interrogate their reasons for wanting to study abroad, as this can begin to develop reflexive skills based on awareness of their positionality (crucial for experiential learning), but also more prosaically help them make better choices and you provide more tailored support.

Study and/or abroad

It was telling, but perhaps unsurprising, that when asked about motivations for studying abroad, the least popular option was “The opportunity to experience different teaching styles and module content” – no students placed this as their first choice, and 68% (n = 80) of respondents deemed it least important. Put simply for almost all students, it is much more about the “abroad” than the “study”. One returnee summed it up perfectly:

It wasn’t really study abroad, it was just more like travel abroad. I know it sounds quite bad to say that, but yeah, I just didn’t … It didn’t feel like I was at Uni. Like to be honest, this whole last year was like I’ve done nothing, not nothing, but like I mean academically, like nothing in comparison to first year. Yeah, because the level there was much easier as well … The content wasn’t that difficult to grasp.

(Interviewee 10, Malaysia campus)

The Malaysia campus in particular was seen as a perfect location for those wishing to travel and maximise their time abroad: cost of living is cheap, it is well positioned for affordable travel across South-East Asia, and, as the above quote highlights, there was a sense that the “study” could be done relatively easily (we return to this “epistemic racism” in the next section). So much so, that students often actively chose modules, they were much less interested in to maximise their ability to travel (the Malaysia campus offers no human geography modules, yet the majority of students who go are human geographers). Prioritising “abroad” over “study” is not necessarily an issue, however, given the multiple “lived curriculum” benefits that come not just from experiential learning but also from doing so in a different cultural context (Tillett & Cushing-Leubner, 2021). There are concerns, however, if this is done unreflexively, as it can lapse into neocolonial forms of learning-through-adventure, a common corollary of which is the implicit (or, as with the above quotation, explicit) denigration of the host country’s education system, an accidental Occidentalism which further reinforces Western knowledge and pedagogies (Doerr, 2013; Gilbertson et al., 2021).

With the debrief interviews, we were able to probe some of these issues which helped with critical reflection (and thus move closer to meaningful experiential learning), and this was especially the case when encouraging students to compare across educational contexts. Amusingly a common refrain from students was how different the culture and expectations were when describing what sounded like pretty standard pedagogy: on numerous occasions we were regaled with stories of how the expectation is that you turn up to, and participate in, the classes having already done the reading in advance. “Reflective observation” is central to experiential learning, helping to make sense of “concrete experiences”, and in this case, the value post-trip was clear. But to maximise how much students can get from studying abroad and encourage critical experiential learning, reflection, and reflexivity needs to be built into the experience itself. Clear support and scaffolding, while students are away, help with this and enables them to examine their positionality and confront certain privileges they may have (Milner, 2020). Foregrounding and confronting these privileges, and with them the tensions inherent in attempts at decolonial study abroad has been shown to be much more effective than seeking to downplay them. And while it may be more challenging for students, the reflexive and experiential benefits can be huge. Gilbertson et al. (2021) discuss setting assignments that force students to interrogate the colonial underpinnings of most (all?) North-South study abroad, while below we discuss the benefits and challenges of reflexive learning diaries and semi-regular check-ins. Ultimately, efforts to promote the hyper-self-reflexivity required to even consider decolonial pedagogical praxis takes time and effort and so must be embedded within the whole process of studying abroad, while considering that for many students a further emphasis on “study” may pail into comparison with experiencing and enjoying the “abroad”.

Decolonising explicit, hidden, and null curricula

Decolonising the curriculum is perhaps a misnomer. Instead, as shown above, we must think more expansively about the explicit, hidden, and null curricula and how these, in conjunction with the lived curriculum of experiential learning (Tillett & Cushing-Leubner, 2021), contribute to this wider, complex, and incomplete process (Le Grange, 2016, 2019). This tripartite structure is used here to explore some examples where students have experienced some movement towards a more decolonial outlook.

Beginning with the explicit curricula, this was actually most notable for those students studying in the settler-colonial contexts of Australia, Canada, and the USA, where almost all of our students took modules that engaged explicitly with indigeneity. Despite efforts to focus more on post- and de-colonial theory in UK geography, returning students had found these debates abstracted, failing to see their direct relevance until they had undertaken a module in either a post- or settler-colonial context. As Interviewee 9 who studied in Perth said, “I really enjoyed one module on indigenous culture because I actually didn’t know much about it”. This was echoed by SR27 (who interestingly has Australian family): “I am also interested in studying the indigenous people of Australia and how they have been mistreated”. Three main things can be drawn from this. First, it reflects the types of students who overwhelmingly study abroad, reinforcing the idea that it can sadly be quite exclusionary. It speaks to a position of postcolonial privilege to opt out of confronting the realities of the colonial present, relegating it to the merely conceptual, and so arguably a first step in using study abroad to decolonise curricula is to significantly and meaningfully widen participation. Second, this paints a poor picture of our current efforts to decolonise our teaching and learning given that, even accepting point one, as critical educators we should still be able to make this case. Third, and finally, it emphasises the value of experiential learning abroad (Lutterman-Aguilar and Gingerich, 2002).

Those who undertook mobility to the Global South also clearly took a lot from the hidden curriculum (even if it was simply that there is a hope/expectation that students will actually engage with content and delivery). In particular, this was from an increased use of field teaching and a whole different of case studies which opened students up to different perspectives, points made by two students who studied in Malaysia:

And instead of … Europe and UK as case studies … I had to learn a whole new geography … So a lot of the time they’d be talking about the Philippines or Malaysia.

(Interviewee 1)

It was nice [to] see these cases from different perspectives … It was interesting to see how [the] Malaysian government and people deal with the same issues that we sometimes do.

(Interviewee 10)

It is important to have slight caution here; however, as Interviewee 10 seemingly contradicts themselves across two statements. While in the quotation here they spoke about the value in seeing things from different perspectives, earlier in the paper we saw them denigrating the nature of the education they were receiving. This talks to a latent sense of superiority, which views what they studied abroad as an exotic curio, rather than necessarily contributing to a wider, pluralistic ecology of knowledges (Andreotti, 2011). While this may not be fully fledged “epistemicide” (Le Grange, 2016), it is certainly an example of the epistemic racism/violence (Heleta, 2016) that must be challenged by efforts to decolonise.

Finally, upon return some students were really able to unpack the null curriculum of the home institution, and with it reflect more broadly on the colonial underpinnings of their education. Interviewee 4, who again studied in Malaysia, mentioned just this:

It made me realise how Eurocentric the curriculum is because we did not learn anything about the UK or America. It was all like Asian markets … So I thought that was really interesting and something that I just never even thought about before. How we learn everything to do with the UK or America.

This shows the value of studying abroad, helping to make visible something which they had previously taken for granted.¹² That said, student awareness of hidden and null curricula is unlikely, on its own, to constitute anything meaningfully decolonial. Reflexivity is crucial here, not just while the students are away but also before they go and after they return. For this reason, we argue that study abroad advisors should ensure they play an active role across the entire process. The relational (and at times liminal) experience that study abroad students have across (at least) two universities can, with guidance, help to develop a transgressive curriculum (Tillett & Cushing-Leubner, 2021) in-against-and-beyond the potentially colonial explicit one. This is not easy, but reflexivity is a skill that can be learned. It is aided by the experiential, but they co-constitute. Experience without reflection will always be limited in its critical and transformative nature, but equally for many of us (students included), reflection without experience will never be as long-lasting or meaningful. We therefore conclude with tips to aid this process and tentatively move towards a process of decolonising curricula through study abroad.

Conclusions

Decolonisation is as messy as it is processual and, as we have shown, while imperfect, studying abroad has the potential to play an important role in this. Reflecting on our research and practice, we offer up practical solutions which cut across three key sites of intervention: pre-trip, the trip itself, and post-trip. Furthermore, we relate these suggestions to key tenets of experiential learning and Kolb’s reflective cycle, the need to first plan (abstract conceptualisation), then experience (active experimentation and concrete experience), and then crucially reflect and interpret (reflective observation). In particular, we emphasise a need for extra scaffolding as the final two practices come much less naturally to students.

Pre-trip (abstract conceptualisation)

This period enables scalable interventions for students who variously consider, apply for, and secure a place on study abroad programs, ranging from light-touch to the more in-depth. Students have powerful imaginative geographies, but as shown, these are often reductive and colonially inflected. These geographies play a huge role in shaping if students apply and where they apply to, and it is thus incumbent on us to not only provide them with more information but also challenge their preconceptions, especially around the(ir) ideas of “culture”. We have therefore found that confronting stereotypes students have about destinations (especially those in the Global South) through explicitly decolonial counternarratives in our presentations and information has helped when introducing new students to the prospect of studying abroad. We have also made extensive use of returning student testimony, getting them to speak about things they were not expecting to ground some of these points. This approach enables a broad catchall but is unlikely to foster significant reflexivity. Once students express an interest in applying; however, it is possible to push things further. With the application, we therefore encourage students to talk to us and personal tutors about their plans and hopes for studying abroad and probe their choice of destinations. This avoids them simply adopting the path of least-resistance, and we especially encourage them to consider course content alongside the location itself. Finally, we suggest working closely with successful students to interrogate their motivations for study abroad through a process of positionality mapping (see Jacobson & Mustafa, 2019). This can be done simply with pen and paper and encourages students to note down key aspects of their positionality and their hopes and fears for studying abroad. Doing this can start them on a reflexive journey and is something we come back to post-trip.

During the trip (active experimentation and concrete experience)

Part of the pre-trip work is encouraging students to think more critically about the modules they choose while abroad. In part, this is to ensure that they maximise the opportunity (by selecting modules that interest them and ideally they would not be able to study at the home institution) but it also serves as a gentle reminder that the process is about study and abroad, and with it the value of the lived curriculum (Tillett & Cushing-Leubner, 2021). In recent years, we have also had great success in mandating that students pick at least one module that focuses on the geography/politics/culture of the host country, and in-settler colonial contexts, if possible, a module that explicitly analyses questions of indigeneity. Doing this bridges the gap between learning, doing, and experiencing while abroad and, as some of the quotations above show, has really expanded our students’ critical understanding, forced them to confront their positionality, and served to combat Eurocentrism and epistemicide. To aid reflexivity while away, we also recommend introducing light-touch learning diaries (cf. Dummer et al., 2008). Getting students to think, however briefly, about their learning experiences and how these differ (or not) from their home institution helps develop reflexive skills and also maximise the likelihood of experiential learning over the more-uncritical adventure learning. Alongside this, we also aim to have at least two check-ins with students, while they are away. This not only helps us to resolve any issues that may emerge and look after student wellbeing but we can use these to encourage the further reflexivity needed for experiential learning abroad.

Post-trip (reflective observation)

Finally, it is important to also intervene in the post-trip period, as although students often find the transition back to studying at home challenging, it is an especially ripe time for reflection. To aid this we have started debrief interviews with returning students. These cover practical questions about their time abroad and how we can improve our support for them, but also more pedagogical and reflexive questions which make use of their learning diaries. We also suggest returning to their positionality maps/diagrams and encouraging them to redo these following their experience, using any differences (or lack thereof) as a topic of discussion about what students have learned and, arguably more importantly, unlearned. These interviews and activities have enabled students to return to study with a more critical perspective on their time abroad and, we argue, maximise the decolonial potential of study abroad through encouraging hyper-self-reflexivity.

We are aware, however, of the challenges with some of the abovementioned suggestions, especially getting students to complete the learning diary when away. Not only does this increase staff workload but can also often face resistance from students who see it as the last thing they want to do while abroad. Mandating these things can prove counterproductive if the desire is to increase reflexivity, as the activities can become rote and unthinking, while equally if they are optional many just do not do them. But if they, in a general commitment to reflexivity, are tied in with the wider scheme through proper scaffolding and explanation, then students are much more likely to engage. The more students can be encouraged to be reflexive about their experiences of study abroad the greater the chances of meaningful experiential learning, and with it the opportunity to tend towards the decolonial.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to all the PGCHE staff who provided useful feedback on an earlier version of this paper, Rachael Bird and Julie Sowter for their help with the study abroad process, and to all the students who gave their time to participate.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In both the UK (605,130 in 2020/21) and the USA (1,075,496 in 2019/20) inward student mobility is much higher (Open Doors, 2023; UUK, 2022).

2. We use the terms Global North and South given their dominance in the wider literature on student mobility, however we acknowledge both their limitations and colonial underpinnings. They could therefore be replaced with Minority/Majority World.

3. Predominantly an academic one, the role exists alongside significant, centralised administrative support to offer subject-specific insight, help students select universities and modules, and convert their grades upon return. Over time, however, it has grown to become more pastoral and increasingly focuses on non-academic queries around accommodation, travel opportunities, and questions of “culture”. We explore this balance between the “study” and the “abroad” components below.

4. This was also another reason for carrying out interviews post-trip, so that there could be no concerns from students that their ability to get on to the competitive program was related to their agreeing (or not) to do an interview.

5. This also reflects a broader issue around race and class in geography and “elite” UK Universities, but this is beyond the scope of this paper.

6. This was chosen as a proxy for economic class given the challenges associated with, among other things, self-definition and potential lack of awareness of family income. Students were given the option to “prefer not to say” but none chose this. Free school meals are offered to students whose family receive certain income- and asylum-related support from the government (see Long, 2023).

7. While we unpack some of these tensions in this section, it is important to recognise how euphemistic use of the concept “culture” can obscure and prevent meaningful engagement with race, racialisation, and racism, and their relationships with broader colonial structures of power (Lentin, 2005), thus functioning as a form of post-political recolonisation.

8. For example, students were overwhelmingly positive about Australia and Canada because of their beaches and landscape respectively, but much more negative about the USA due to fears of gun violence. Again we see quite reductive, stereotypical representations.

9. Frustratingly 15 respondents mentioned destinations we do offer, including Germany, France, and Singapore.

10. We return to practical suggestions for how to do this in the conclusion.

11. They were overwhelmingly state educated compared to the much higher-proportion of students from fee-paying schools who undertook other forms of mobility.

12. Again a case can be made that they should already have known this as geography students, but sadly we know this is not the case.