A Survey of Interdisciplinary Geography Study Abroad Opportunities

Abstract

For decades, internationalization of the curriculum has been championed to prepare students for success in a globalized world (Harari 1981; Leask 2015; Mestenhauser and Ellingboe 1998). Internationalizing the curriculum also adds clout to educational institutions and keeps them competitive (Clifford and Montgomery 2011; Harris 2008), and many institutions have developed internationalization plans (Childress 2009). Study abroad is an obvious platform to accomplish these objectives. The number of US students studying abroad has increased from fewer than 100,000 students in the 1993–1994 academic year to nearly 350,000 in 2017–2018 (IIE 2019), and evidence suggests that students who participate in study abroad outperform those who do not (Houser et al. 2011). Study abroad is a type of fieldwork that has long been recognized and valued as an integral part of geography higher education (Mathewson 2001). Modern geographers like Alexander von Humboldt and Friedrich Ratzel spent much time researching abroad and established international study as germane to the discipline. Geography study abroad is more than “simply a marketing tool or an academic tourist excursion, [because] doing fieldwork in unfamiliar places and cultures offers a rich opportunity to disrupt student expectations, and to stimulate critical reflection on geographical practice in our students” (McGuinness and Simm 2005, 242). Since study abroad combines regional studies and fieldwork, both of which are foundational to geography, the discipline is well equipped to lead the internationalization of American universities (Pandit 2009), and it has been argued that geographers do study abroad better than others (Keese 2013). A special issue of Journal of Geography (Veeck and Biles 2009) and a symposium in Journal of Geography in Higher Education (Simm and Marvell 2017, 468) provide additional evidence that geography is “already internationalized and lends itself more easily to internationalizing the curriculum than many subjects and so should be well placed to address the needs of employers and societal needs for global citizens.” Internationalized curricula also foster interdisciplinarity (Childress 2009), and interdisciplinary learning opportunities enable students to “understand and make connections across a diverse array of knowledge and skills” resulting in “more rewarding lives and employment opportunities” (Bear and Skorton 2019, 60). As disciplines across the natural and social sciences and humanities tackle global grand challenges, such as those related to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, interdisciplinarity in education is increasingly important (Annan-Diab and Molinari 2017; Clark and Wallace 2015; Parker 2010) and requires institutional support (Holley 2009). Geography’s topical and methodological breadth, for which it has long struggled to obtain recognition of its disciplinary niche (Turner 2002), is in fact a unique asset that results in interdisciplinary collaboration potential with departments from virtually all colleges across a given campus.