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Microaggressions, Self-Segregation, and Performing Gender: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Culture Shock in a Study Abroad Program

Shannon-Baker, Peggy A
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1447690476

Abstract Details

2015, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies.
Institutions of higher education are increasingly utilizing international education programs (Institute of International Education, 2014), also known as “study abroad” in the USA, especially as a mechanism for increasing students’ cross-cultural awareness (e.g., Marx & Moss, 2011; Salisbury, 2011). The literature on and implementation of such programs does not fully consider two critical issues: the socio-emotional impact of study abroad on participants (i.e., the culture shock they experience), and the relation of cultural identities, such as race, gender, and class, to students’ experiences while abroad. To address this issue, I investigated the ways in which students’ experiences of culture shock were connected to their identity related to race, gender, and class. I used a concurrent mixed methods research design that entailed collecting and analyzing three sets of data: arts-based (self-portraits and students’ reflections on their portraits), qualitative (observations, interviews, and students’ reflections), and quantitative (Revised Cultural Distance Index, a self-rating for culture shock, and demographic information). I collected the data from a sample of students (n =14) who participated in the Ecuador: Immersed in Culture and Education program, which was a short-term program where students taught in indigenous primary schools in Ecuador after a semester-long course. I found that students experienced a range of amounts of culture shock, that it manifested differently for students across race, gender, and class, and that students enacted varying strategies to cope with their culture shock (and the culture shock of others) while on the trip. Whereas students of color were cognizant of how they portrayed themselves and their culture shock to others from the beginning, white students became more conscious of their self-images after being in Ecuador due in part to feeling like a minority for the first time. For white students from affluent backgrounds, their culture shock tended to be more intense and manifested in complaints and repeated use of words such as “small” to describe themselves in their self-portraits. Students of color and working class white students generally experienced less culture shock quantitatively, but experienced their own culture shock in witnessing their white affluent peers’ complaints. As a result, these students chose to segregate themselves. All of the students sought out like-peers across race and class to find comfort and manage their culture shock. I also found that two students made intentional choices about their gender performance as a strategy to manage their culture shock in relation to their interactions with Ecuadorians. Finally, I found that students’ limited understanding of culture shock and gender impacted how they quantified their culture shock and analyzed their experiences based on gender. As a result of these findings, I argue for a more expansive view of culture shock that gives more emphasis to the impact of cross-cultural relationships among students while they are abroad. For the students in this study, their manifestations and strategies to adapt to culture shock were intertwined with their perceptions of others across race, gender, and class. I also conclude that international programs must critically engage with cross-cultural issues both in terms of the content of pre-departure training/coursework as well as in terms of the relationships between students in the program. I also argue for training leaders and students in how to identify and manage culture shock. I also discuss some methodological implications for this research, my positionality, and future research.
Holly Johnson, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Vicki Daiello, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Vicki Plano Clark, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Education
Culture shock; Study abroad; Race; Gender; Socioeconomic class; Mixed methods

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Shannon-Baker, P. A. (2015). Microaggressions, Self-Segregation, and Performing Gender: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Culture Shock in a Study Abroad Program [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1447690476

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Shannon-Baker, Peggy. Microaggressions, Self-Segregation, and Performing Gender: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Culture Shock in a Study Abroad Program. 2015. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1447690476.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Shannon-Baker, Peggy. "Microaggressions, Self-Segregation, and Performing Gender: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Culture Shock in a Study Abroad Program." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1447690476

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1447690476
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© 2015, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Microaggressions, Self-Segregation, and Performing Gender: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Culture Shock in a Study Abroad Program by Peggy A Shannon-Baker is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.