Date of Award

1-1-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Kathy Peno

Abstract

This inquiry is situated against the backdrop of local and national trends in U.S. education that indicate a rapidly diversifying K-12 student population (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024b) and ongoing challenges to effectively prepare teachers to meet the complex needs that culturally and linguistically diverse and English language learner students bring with them to school (de Jong, 2021). One way that the field of education has addressed these challenges has been through broader development and implementation of study abroad opportunities for pre-service teachers. In the field of education, studying abroad is now often conceptualized as an opportunity to provide the predominantly homogenous U.S. teacher force with firsthand experience interacting and working with students and community members from culturally and linguistically differing backgrounds (Morley et al., 2019; Phillion et al., 2009).

Despite the low representation of education majors in overall study abroad participation of U.S. students (Institute of International Education, 2024b), a rich body of literature has explored and described a wide range of benefits that studying abroad can indeed provide pre-service teachers. Comparatively, however, much less research has been conducted among practicing teachers who engage in study abroad, limiting the field’s understanding of if or how they too experience personal and professional growth through such opportunities. This qualitative phenomenological case study addresses this research gap through an exploration of the experiences of a group of practicing K-12 teachers who participated in a month-long, Fulbright-Hays-Sponsored Group Project Abroad in Guatemala. The vision of the faculty-led Guatemala Study Abroad program was to provide participating teachers with a culturally and linguistically immersive learning experience in the home and heritage country of a significant percentage of students and community members in their local teaching contexts, with the ultimate goal of enhancing dispositions, knowledge, and skills to better serve them (Tichnor-Wagner et al., 2019).

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews which took place during and after the study abroad program’s culmination. The study was theoretically grounded in Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Theory, Mezirow’s (1991) Transformative Learning Theory, and Tichnor-Wagner’s et al. (2019) framework of Globally Competent Teaching. Data were analyzed using an abductive approach which made use of provisional, initial, and focused coding (Bingham & Witkowsky, 2021; Saldaña, 2009). The hybrid methodological approach allowed for a discussion of studying abroad as a practicing teacher as a broader phenomenon, as well as a discussion of the case-specific contextual factors that influenced what participants’ ultimately gained from the experience. While several of the study’s findings parallel those widely discussed in pre-service teacher study abroad research, important insights into what makes studying abroad for practicing teachers particularly impactful are discussed. Practical and theoretical implications, as a well as suggestions for future research are provided.

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