'Should studying abroad do something for us or to us?: Relinquishing autonomy for authenticity'

The Global Studies Seminar presents “Should studying abroad do something for us or to us?: Relinquishing autonomy for authenticity” by Denison University’s Assistant Professor of Education Andrew Frankel.

How do students independently pursuing spiritual education abroad conceptualize authentic learning experiences and their outcomes? In tourism contexts, Ning Wang (1999) highlights the active role travelers play in constructing authentic experiences in new environments. Many philosophers of education (e.g., Rousseau 1769/2012; Dewey 1919/1997; and Freire 1974/2018) have similarly argued that educational authenticity is predicated on pedagogical engagement with students’ individual identities and personal experiences. This orientation, often referred to as ‘student-centered learning’ and encapsulated in approaches ranging from ‘YouTube University’ to Universal Design for Learning (Schriber 2017), emphasizes both students’ autonomy in charting their journeys and educators’ responsibility to ‘cater to’ diverse students’ individual needs. Such an approach, however, not only risks minimizing the communality that Charles Taylor (1991) argues is integral to authentic experience, but also appears to preclude the possibility of undergoing learning processes that Tim Ingold (2017) argues are transformative precisely because learners do not autonomously select and curate their experiences and expected results. 

Interviews with students who have traveled to India to study Buddhism (taught by Tibetan monastics) reveal that learners conceptualized authenticity as commensurate with the rigor and specificity of the reciprocal commitments teachers and students make. Data suggest meaningful learning experiences are produced by freely but judiciously relinquishing autonomy to a teacher who guarantees transformative learning proportional to students’ willingness to undergo challenges not only to their expectations of what learning should produce and the methods for doing so. This research draws on theory in tourism studies and the philosophy of education to develop normative theory on the role teachers play in mediating the potentially inverse relationship between autonomy and authenticity in international educational experiences.

Frankel uses ethnographic methods to study how social groups think about the ‘big’ philosophical questions of education. He completed his dissertation research on supplemental education in Tibetan areas in China and continues to explore the oppressive and liberating potentials of educational institutions. His current research explores how students seeking spiritual education abroad conceptualize and pursue authentic learning experiences.