Re-entry/Repatriation of University Study Abroad Students

Fluidity of identity is often experienced by university study abroad students adjusting to a new culture abroad and then returning to home/original culture after study abroad. Capitalizing on the transition in identity of returning study abroad students for the benefit of students without connection to study abroad due to economic marginalization and/or other potential social justice issues is a desired outcome of this research.

Consequently, this research is two-fold. Firstly, it is focused on documenting best-practices constructed and utilized by university study abroad offices as strategies designed for study abroad students readjusting to their home/original culture while returning to their home institution after having studied abroad for one or two semesters.

This research is secondly focused on discovering the de facto strategies not formally in place by study abroad offices and yet constructed and utilized by returning study abroad students as well for the re-adjustment process of having returned to the student’s original culture.

Capitalizing on the experiences of cultural transition and thus fluidity of identity of study abroad students, it is the de facto re-entry strategies constructed and utilized by returning study abroad students I want to document additionally so as to duplicate them consciously by study abroad offices to effect change by connecting returning study abroad students with students who have, through economic marginalization and/or other social justice issues, not had access to study abroad information to consider this opportunity of international education.