10/15/2008 - Moving Beyond Mobility at the 2008 AFS World Congress
At the international conference Moving Beyond Mobility from October 13th through 14th in Berlin, scientists and practitioners from 13 countries presented the current state of affairs in intercultural exchange experiences.
Pictured: Ján Figel’
Berlin, October 14th 2008
”We need to achieve mobility as a rule, as a normality,” Ján Figel’ said at the opening of the international conference Moving beyond Mobility on Monday. The EU-Commissioner for Education, Culture and Youth and the patron of the international conference welcomed the 70 experts from 13 countries who presented the results of current research on these and other topics in Berlin from October 13th through 14th at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. “Until today, research results from the field of intercultural exchange have never been accumulated nor been looked at in an international context before. The conference Moving Beyond Mobility is closing this gap”, said Ján Figel’ – a statement which was underscored by the more than 200 participants at the end of the conference. The goal was to create a common platform for scientists, experts and politicians alike to present solutions for current challenges within intercultural exchange.
The international conference took place among the festivities for the 60th anniversary of AFS Germany. The non-profit exchange organization coordinates the conference in cooperation with the European Federation of Intercultural Learning (EFIL) and the Intercultural Development Research Institute in Milano, Italy. Additional partners include the international umbrella organization AFS Intercultural Programs, the Association of non-profit youth exchange organizations in Germany (AJA) and the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena.
At the beginning of the international conference AFS International presented the results of a long-term-study on intercultural student exchange: 2.500 former AFS program participants, who went abroad 20 to 25 years ago, were asked about the effects the exchange year had on their personal and professional development. For the first time on such a broad base, the AFS long-term study provides findings on the intercultural and social imprint of an exchange year; on language and social skills as well as on the intercultural sensibility of exchange students. Findings showed that one-third of the returnees in this study also studied abroad at the university level (compared with 22 per cent of the control group) and that they are fluent in other languages additional to their native language. “AFS returnees are more likely than their peers to seek a career or employment that involves working extensively with other cultures”, according to Bettina Hansel, AFS International’s Director for Intercultural Education and Research, who conducted the long-term study for AFS. “Furthermore, the returnees include more people from other cultures among their friends and in their professional network than do their peers.” The intercultural competence necessary for these networks is acquired during repeated stays in another culture, e.g. semesters abroad after the school year exchange, Hansel concluded.
Pictured : Bettina Hansel
But already the organization of the initial intercultural experience is not without obstacles. These were discussed by renowned experts and practitioners in the closing panel of the conference: “The non-recognition of study periods abroad by the state institutions is one of the major obstacles”, Danish researcher Søren Kristensen said. “We need to come to a point where the full range of competences of a whole school year can be acquired abroad as well”. In Europe, these would be best catalyzed by a template given by the European Commission, Rita Stegen thinks, centralized standards that would be internationally agreed upon among states. “But recognition is also needed within the state”, she added, being at the head of the Bureau of the Working Committee of non-profit exchange organizations in Germany. Here, the ministries of education within 16 different countries all have different rules or no guidelines at all for recognizing intercultural experiences. “We still miss a general recognition of the competences acquired in a school year abroad. It’s not as easy as in Austria, where only a proof is needed that the student had attended a secondary school.”
The lack of recognition leads to further discouragement of the student. “Mainly, it’s the courage of the student which is at issue here,” said Roberto Ruffino, national director of AFS Italy. Only 11 per cent of Italian adolescents would go abroad, regardless the possible lack of funds other obstacles. “It’s the mental block which is a most serious issue.” In that regard, the most important motivators for students as well as co-operators for exchange organizations are teachers. “Often they are the main obstacle”, Ruffino says, “because youth mobility is often misinterpreted as the realm of the language teachers.” On the other hand, those active teachers are seldom backed by their schools, as there is rare support and no compensations for the extra work, Kristensen said, referring to his evaluations in Denmark. “Therefore it is important to inscribe international activity into national educational strategies”, Kirstensen said. These must be backed by co-operations between governments and the civil society, added Thomas Uthup, a research manager at the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University (SUNY). “Exchanges should be part of national plans, where the efforts of the civil society actors are combined.”
In Germany, exchange organizations already have the Federal Foreign Office on their side. The ministry supports schools and participants in building up networks, where competences are linked that the ministry could not otherwise provide. The motivation behind the state actor is obvious, as Ines Geßner, Deputy Head of Division stated: “In times of globalization, we are convinced that problems only can be solved with partners.” Therefore, intercultural exchanges help to promote Germany abroad and strengthen German relations to other countries.
At the end of the conference, time to look into the future: “We started a valuable dialogue between scientists and practitioners that may continue and form the backbone of co-operation in the years to come,” concluded Mick Petersmann, National Director of AFS Germany. “Moving beyond Mobility gave us important orientation for future developments in international youth exchange.”
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