Long-term impact of four intercultural citizenship projects in the higher education foreign language classroom

Abstract

This study reports on the evaluation of long-term impact of four intercultural citizenship projects undertaken in university foreign language classrooms. Curricular developments based on Byram’s intercultural citizenship theory have demonstrated the immediate impact including the development of self and intercultural awareness, criticality, social justice responsibility and language learning as well as the emergence of a sense of community and bonding among transnational peers. However, the long-term effects have not been investigated. This study sets out to analyse Argentinian students’ recollections–between two and four years after the event – of experiences in four intercultural citizenship projects undertaken over several years with students in the UK and in Italy. These one-year projects combined language teaching and citizenship/human rights education. Students’ retrospective reflection logs were analysed using content analysis, and findings show that the students remembered and valued their emotional engagement with critical content and with their transnational peers; they had varied and conflicting views about how the projects had contributed to their language learning; and mid- and long-term civic engagement occurred mostly at what Michael Byram refers to as the ‘pre-political’ level, involving thought, awareness and personal development, rather than action at the ‘political’ level.