Program Intervention in the Process of Cultural Integration: The Example of French Practicum

Abstract

We can, we think, advance the premise that study abroad enriches to the degree that it takes participants out of the velour world of the campus and the form-fitting comfort of their own culture—in other words, to the degree that it disturbs and, thus, awakens. As anyone who has lived abroad knows, the genuine traversal into another culture is a challenging, occasionally painful experience. Yet it is primarily through the temporary discomfort of challenges met, the hard learning of embarrassment, and the humility fostered by intimate contact with other ways of thinking and being that education occurs abroad. We might say that it is only in this discomfort that ease and security abroad can take root.