Life changing experiences? The long-term impact of an overseas study visit to India on UK ITE students

This paper explores the long-term impact of study visits to south India undertaken by UK teacher education students from 1999–2002. The research involved students who had been on the study visits ten to fifteen years earlier. All the participants completed an extensive open-ended survey and the themes which then emerged were investigated through in-depth interviews and graphic representations. Previous studies have explored the immediate impact of study abroad programmes but the long-term effects are poorly understood. The findings from this research suggest that the study visits had lasting impacts on (a) the students’ intercultural understanding (b) their professional practice and (c) their personal development. Additonally, the study visits generated the kind of educational risk that facilitates meaningful encounters with the world and helped the students change their frames of reference from ego-centric to world-centric perspectives. Such dispositions operate at a foundational level and are so deeply embedded they are often not acknowledged. A rhizomatic model is proposed in which the students’ responses are seen as manifestations of an ethical engagement with self, others and the environment – an essential quality for ITE students at a time of growing global social and environmental crisis.