International field education: A case study of developing an anti-colonial group study program in Mexico

International field education

Field education is the ‘signature pedagogy for social work’, providing a crucial opportunity for synthesis as students actively combine theory and practice (Council on Social Work Education [CSWE], 2015: 12). IFE is described as an exemplary means to equip social work students with the skills necessary to work in a world consisting of diverse individuals and communities (Cotten and Thompson, 2017; Dunlap and Mapp, 2017). Several models of IFE have been identified, including Pettys et al.’s (2005) early model based on a survey of 21 social work programs in the United States. A 2012 critical review of current knowledge about IFE identified four competing models: ‘(1) Independent/one-time; (2) Neighbor-country; (3) Onsite group; and (4) Exchange/reciprocal’ (Nuttman-Shwartz and Berger, 2012: 225). Furthermore, IFE models in Australia have been characterized as ‘informal linkages for individual students, linkages between Australian social work programmes, formalised university to university agreements and formalised university to agency agreements’ (Fox and Hugman, 2019: 1371).

The goal of acquiring a ‘global mindset’ can be achieved through various lengths of IFE. The key, according to Graham and Crawford (2012), is facilitating ‘some kind of disorientation of previous knowledge and a shift in personal worldview’ (Deckert, 2020: 67). IFE is documented as a means to enhance students’ cultural awareness and adaptability, sensitivity and/or competence (Dunlap and Mapp, 2017; Fisher and Grettenberger, 2015; Matthew and Lough, 2017). In an increasingly globalized world, it is both practical and strategic for schools of social work to plan and promote such experiences for their students. IFE responds to this need while meeting the professional practice requirements for Canadian social workers to develop international and inter-cultural competency (see ‘Cultural Competence’ in Alberta College of Social Workers [ACSW], 2019: 24; ‘Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity’ in Canadian Association of Social Workers [CASW], 2005: 4; ‘Engage Diversity and Difference in Practice’ in CSWE, 2015: 7).

Postcolonial theory

Postcolonial theory challenges neutrality and universalism of knowledge, especially as it relates to how persons, cultures and locations are constructed, defined, represented or translated as ‘other’ (Kapoor, 2005). In mainstream approaches, international locations, peoples and institutions are often constructed as the exotic other to serve the interests of Western institutions (Mukherjee and Chowdhury, 2014). Drawing from Said’s (1978) concept of orientalism, a form of othering, Mukherjee and Chowdhury (2014) advance that ‘existing stereotypes about countries are deliberately used on flyers to draw attention of prospective [students] and thus increase recruitment’ (p. 580). Colonized persons and countries being constructed as ‘inferior, childlike, or feminine, incapable of looking after themselves’, casts their knowledge, practices and ways of knowing as subservient (Young, 2003: 2), reinforcing colonizers as superior, civilized and expert (Young, 2003). Persson (2017) offers the example of Swedish social work students ‘being treated as an expert or a saviour’ (p. 47). In contrast, postcolonialism ‘seeks to change the way people think, the way they behave, to produce a more just and equitable relation between the different peoples of the world’ (Young, 2003: 7). Postcolonialism emphasizes cultural differences and contexts, rendering visible power and positionality in existing academic networks and communities’ knowledges. This is evident in Latin America, where an epistemological turn within institutions of higher learning are reflected in the resurgence and legitimation of a decentralized knowledge. Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel (2015) describes this process as an interdisciplinary task, a decolonizing turn from the schools of thought in Latin America, where knowledge is understood and affirmed based on personal characteristics, traditions and subjective life worlds rather than in objectively given material environments.

Critiques of IFE include colonial voyeurism; the ability of students from the ‘global North’ to use their access to capital and privilege for transnational travel; the disruption and coercion of local peoples, communities and economies in the global South through the presence of IFE students; and environmental degradation. For the purpose of this article, we focus on two principle critiques: the issue of whose priorities direct the IFE experience and the harms caused by Western institutions implementing colonial methods/theories in non-Western settings.

By questioning who sets the agenda for IFE, we highlight challenges that occur when, for example, Western institutions decide ahead of time the projects and priorities of IFE students without partnering with locals to determine how they define their issues and how they want to see them addressed (Fisher and Grettenberger, 2015). In this approach, colonial power relations are reinforced both implicitly and explicitly. Said’s (1978) account of representation or construction of the other, with power relations organized by class and race (etc.) (Quijano, 2014), is a viable way of approaching this critique of IFE.

Given the long and damaging history caused by Western institutions’ prorogation of ‘other’ as ‘inferior [. . .] incapable of looking after themselves’ (Young, 2003: 2), IFE is likely to reinforce this approach unless anticolonial discourse and actions are forefronted. By constructing non-Western partners as passive, poorly resourced and unprofessional, Western institutions become the self-anointed and de facto professionals, the capable and well-resourced leaders (Fisher and Grettenberger, 2015). Therefore, Western institutions justify taking charge of the IFE programs and, in doing so, are able to prioritize their students’ learning needs, which ensures that the institutions’ graduates are the ‘best’ educated possible, reinforcing their reputation as an institution of high learning and maintaining pre-existing power relationships.

To combat this, IFE programs should explicitly examine constructs of self and the ‘other’, offering then up for re-interpretation. For example, Dunlap and Mapp (2017) had students present on their own culture prior to traveling, which promoted students’ reflection on the ‘heterogeneous aspect of diversity [and] aimed at avoiding stereotyped reproductions of global North/South power hierarchies’ (p. 896). A critical examination of self must be coupled with a willingness to see partners as active collaborators bringing their own strengths, needs, expertise and priorities to the program, which then allows for project priorities to be negotiated rather than imposed (Fisher and Grettenberger, 2015). Ghose (2012) described the adoption of a postcolonial pedagogical approach such that students and local organizations decided on research topics collectively, producing projects on ‘issues that the [local organization] was working on and needed research help with’ (p. 717).

Professional imperialism reflects an often-unquestioned privileging of Western knowledge and practices over local ways, which is reminiscent of colonial relationships wherein the views and practices of colonizers were/are considered definitively superior by the colonizers (Hugman, 2010; Razack, 2002). Contemporary examples may be as innocuous as social workers using Western nomenclature to describe non-Western phenomena, or as far-reaching as a country’s current social welfare system being based on that established by a previous colonial regime (Beecher et al., 2012). When Western students uncritically apply the theories, practices and so on of the West, while abroad they are assuming that what has been established as legitimate knowledge in one region is equally relevant in another (Persson, 2017; Said, 1978). They then assume universality and neutrality of knowledge and knowledge production, which reflects the underlying assumption that ‘the production of knowledge and other academic gains flow from North to South’ (Razack, 2002: 255). Assumptions that Western epistemology and ontology are neutral and universal ignore the cultural, racial, historical, economic, social, religious and political influences that shape the production of knowledge, thereby ignoring context and power, thus undermining the value and legitimacy of knowledge produced locally, within hosting communities (Castleden et al., 2018; Vibert and Sadeghi-Yekta, 2018). It is important to clarify that is not the exchange of knowledge per se between students and institutions that may be problematic, but rather the underlying presumption that the North provides the only legitimate knowledge and that it is superior to whatever exists elsewhere (Castleden et al., 2018; Persson, 2017). This presumption impacts even the recognition of what can be observed or known in the daily life of community – for example, discourses, theories, practices, ethical positions and contradictory values.

A postcolonial approach requires IFE programs to denounce neutrality and universality of knowledge and, in contrast, engage in transformative learning and thus, differing perspectives on knowledge and associated actions. Knowledge is political – part of and subject to the shifting and complex relations of power that exist between nations, institutions and individuals (Vibert and Sadeghi-Yekta, 2018). Therefore, students must be humble about their knowledge base, re-examining ‘universal’ social work values (Castleden et al., 2018; Ghose, 2012; Young, 2003), and be willing to adapt to, integrate and adopt local perspectives where appropriate (Corbin, 2012). Ethical practices when conducting research or social work practice with oppressed people, for example, requires creating lasting mutual commitments, before, during and after investigations and interventions.

Also, hosting institutions, organizations and communities have a role in overcoming imperial tendencies of IFE, as Nimmagadda and Cowger (1999) explain:

those who might believe that social work practice knowledge might be destructive because of cultural incongruity give too much credit to the power of such knowledge and too little credit to the power of the local culture and the ingenuity of culturally grounded practitioners. (As cited in Razack, 2002: 261)

Postcolonialism is not without critique. For example, the intent of avoiding a Western-based hierarchy is negated if each side engages in othering, while power over and with knowledge is negotiated (Ghose, 2012). Yet social work’s focus on intersectionality suggests there are many lines across which power is negotiated. As Ghose (2012) reinforces, when Western institutions partner with the elite of another society, they may unintentionally reproduce the ‘social inequities already present in a particular context’ (p. 720). Postcolonial theory’s promotion of the use of critical reflection may counter oppression and neocolonization forces (Loomba, 2015) and assist in assessing and determining when and in what way Western knowledge and practice can or should be shared in global South contexts. This study examines the feasibility of developing an IFE framed by postcolonial theory.

Sampling and participants

The UNAM academic identified potential key informants for the study with expertise on IFE and knowledge of social and community realities. Once ethics approval was obtained (REB18-0425), we used purposive sampling to recruit 14 individuals in various sites in Mexico, who participated in 10 interviews (one with four individuals and one with two individuals). Participants included professors, professionals of public institutions, social organizations and NGOs, researchers, community leaders and social workers employed in humanitarian or human services organizations. All participants except one had previous experience with IFE, either short-term (1 day to 1 week) (n = 5) or long-term (1 month to 1 year) (n = 7) from 13 different sending countries. Research assistants (RAs), one UNAM and one UC student, were trained and co-supervised by the researchers. Interested participants contacted the RAs and scheduled an interview at a time and location of their convenience, most often at their office. After providing written informed consent, interviews were conducted in Spanish or English facilitated by a bilingual field guide. Interviews, which lasted approximately 1 hour, were audio-recorded, transcribed and, in the case of Spanish language interviews (7 of the 10 interviews), translated into English. The translation was cross-checked by the RAs to verify accuracy. The semi-structured interview protocol consisted of 12 questions aimed at elucidating the participants’ past experiences with international students and future field education opportunities for international students within their respective organization.

Thematic analysis, consisting of coding according to recurrent themes, topics, relationships and categories with both deductive and inductive approaches (Lapadat, 2010), elucidate five broad categories: (1) positive and negative experiences with international students; (2) expectations and requirements of student preparation for IFE; (3) possible gains for the hosting organization and student in participating in IFE; (4) the preparation of the host organization for integration of students during the field placement; and (5) the evaluation of the student and organization’s experience of IFE. Within each category, several sub-categories were identified, as well as common themes that thread throughout the data. The ‘Results’ section outlines these themes and sub-themes with illustrative quotes drawn from the transcripts.

Positive and negative learning experiences

Most participants reported having had positive experiences with international students. A key characteristic of successful IFE experiences was the preparation of the student and host organization. In terms of the host organizations, being informed of the student’s background and skills was deemed necessary in order to plan appropriate activities and discussions tailored to the student’s learning goals and assist them in avoiding violent and/or dangerous situations during the placement.

Most participants noted flexibility and openness to learning new perspectives, epistemologies and ontologies as desirable attributes of international students because ‘the more you are open to learn, the more you will have a better experience’ (Participant 2). These attributes were also linked to the students’ abilities to connect with local realities in ways that enhanced their learning. For example, Participant 9 suggested that homestay opportunities ‘worked really well’ and students expressed ‘how surprised they were to know the Mexican living firsthand’. Similarly, Participant 10 commented, ‘I felt that they have learned when they go to the community’ and ‘they learn that our perspective/way of looking at life gives more respect for our natural environment, like in trying to protect the land – they also learn our dishes, our local beverages, because we eat differently’.

The integration of new ideas/concepts was a reciprocal experience for the student and the host organization, where experience and/or existing knowledge of the host organization and students could be critically shared and compared and were noted. As Participant 5 elaborated,

It was really enriching because it allowed us and them to compare public policy in both countries and what elements should be considered in both places. To me, that seems really valuable because it opened up the spectrum of placements to them as well as to us.

Although none of the participants expressed concerns about the burden or preparedness of their organization to host students in IFE, some described negative experiences with IFE. Four expressed concern about the wellness of the students because of exposure to ‘realities of life in Mexico’, and ‘in many cases people really became affected by the reality they were discovering’ (Participant 1), recognizing that ‘Mexico is not easy. It is a country that can overwhelm you’ (Participant 9). Others were apprehensive about the adequate and accurate preparation of students in relation to inappropriate cultural responses, inappropriate dress and negative judgments by students. For example, students could accidentally offend locals: ‘sometimes people, let’s say outsiders, people they have never tried this food and they say, “no thank you” and that is something that is not helpful’ (Participant 3). Similarly, Participant 5 stated,

[s]o, it seems to me that first we should contextualize it [country conditions], we need to approach it in a way that helps them [students] be sensitive to the conditions that are completely different. We live in a country in which half of the population live in poverty.

Regarding inappropriate dress, Participant 9 suggested that students ‘didn’t have a previous orientation of how the culture was, so many of the students came with micro-shorts’, which contravenes the ‘need to dress in the way that is proper for the culture’. In relation to negative judgment, Participant 9 suggested that ‘for some people, it is very hard not to make a strong judgment of how Mexico is’.

Expectations and preparation of students

Participants opined the importance of student preparation in terms of security, previous experience relevant to the IFE, and overall attitude/approach and length of IFE. Participants indicated that students’ preparation included the need for adequate travel/medical insurance, disclosure of serious health concerns and arriving with sufficient provisions of prescription medications. Language abilities were also noted by some respondents as important.

Violence was noted as a prevailing reality in Mexico, and thus, a source of unease for international students. Participant 3 stated, ‘we have this violence that has been affecting us . . . I want to clarify, that I don’t want to scare you, but I want to be clear that this [security] is something that we have to consider’. Participant 9 added that previous international education initiatives had existed, ‘but they stopped bringing students because of the violence’, and similarly, Participant 4 suggested that drug-related violence and ‘the big drug dealing problem inside the university city’ are problematic. Participant 3 elaborated that safety varied across regions; there ‘are safe places, we consider them as safe . . . there are some states that we can’t visit’. Potential solutions for increasing security/safety for international students included the hiring of private transportation, avoidance of alcohol, traveling in groups and planning itineraries, carefully recognizing that not all areas in Mexico are safe.

Four participants noted that previous IFE experience, although advantageous, was not necessary. Participant 1 advanced that ‘students that have been involved with [domestic violence or homeless] shelters in Canada . . . have the experience before coming to Mexico, that experience can support the work here’. A diversity of disciplines, however, was not necessarily viewed as an obstacle to IFE. Participant 6 noted, ‘that’s not important. Anyone – I say this as a specialization teacher – I have students of all kinds and somehow, I manage to incorporate them’. In contrast, Participant 5 opined, ‘it would be very important that the students who are included in this activity are students from areas in social science or humanities’.

Student attitude and approach were raised as important. Being ‘open to learn’, a recurrent theme across the interviews, was considered to be a fundamental characteristic of students’ success in IFE. Participant 7 articulated it as ‘more than knowing, it’s about showing real interest . . . if students try to make a contribution, they have to be willing to learn first’ and ‘if you come to a different country, it is because you want to learn, to be open to different experiences’. Furthermore, reciprocity was key as students

need to be interested, not only in knowing the project, but in participating in it. I have seen how foreign volunteers show humility and want not only to learn, but also to make an effort to give something in return. (Participant 7)

Participants also advanced the importance of respecting the knowledge of both the foreign student(s) and the people in their placement organization. As Participant 6 explained, ‘We all need each other . . . positioning yourself as a professional who approaches a problem with all the theoretical and methodological process the profession requires, all alongside other disciplines’. Having a reliable work ethic was also advanced as important: ‘it’s a risk to take someone who is not consistent and responsible because they might not follow rules’ (Participant 3).

Competency with the host language was a key consideration for some organizations. A translator was deemed sufficient for shorter interactions with international students, such as day visits or week-long placements. However, long-term placements such as a practicum, exchange or internship required students to have at least basic Spanish competency and a willingness to improve their language skills. As Participant 2 elaborated, ‘it is important that they can understand it and continue improving’. Language competency is also dependent on the nature of the work; for example,

if someone who doesn’t understand Spanish comes, that person could not be with any children or educator, as they don’t know English. It would also be hard for them to help in administrative issues because we don’t usually work with international organizations. (Participant 7)

Participant 1 provided the following example: ‘we also had a U.S. student and she had no knowledge of Spanish and it was very frustrating for her and she abandoned the program’.

Organizations varied in both their capacity to support and their views about the desirable length of IFE. Briefer visits, they advised, should be focused on observing the organization and potentially meeting with workers to learn about the organization’s mode of operation, whereas longer placements could provide greater integration of students into the organization, with the possibility of direct client work. Nevertheless, hosts and visiting students should have a clear understanding on the length of the visit or placement for strategic planning to occur and for realistic expectations to be established for what can be reasonably accomplished within the time allocated. The importance of being ‘very clear, like from the beginning, what would be the length of stay. That will determine the kind of activities the [students] will be doing’ was recommended by Participant 1. Participant 2 qualified the learning opportunities for briefer visits: ‘in an afternoon or a day, a person cannot learn very much’ as relationship building takes time:

You need to know the community first, in order to know what you can . . . not even to help, but what you can work together on with the community. You would need first to make a diagnosis of the needs and even the dreams of the community and the expectations of the community and I think that takes time.

Possible benefits

Respondents identified that IFE yielded potential gains for international students, host organizations and broader outcomes. Experiential learning, particularly for long-term student placements, was noted as an important benefit of IFE for students. As Participant 2 clarified, IFE provides ‘firsthand knowledge that is difficult to gain outside of an [hosting] institution’, and ‘students always need to go to touch reality’. The value of experiential learning was also noted by Participant 8: ‘there is a lot of experience in the doing’, and ‘I believe that this learning comes from practice’. Exposure to different practices/knowledge through IFE provides students ‘a means of seeing different realities’ (Participant 2). Similarly, Participant 10 echoed, ‘I think that most important of all, is to get a different perspective’.

IFE can assist students to ‘understand and ground their own theoretical and methodological background with which they face a different kind of problem in a different context’ (Participant 6). Participant 7 added,

even if they are from another country, problems are similar and, when they come here, they see how we deal with those kinds of problems. This can help them to integrate parts of our methodology into the work they do when they go back to their own countries.

Participants commented that IFE benefits organizations by exposing them to practices and perspectives on specific issues from other countries. This benefit was premised on being open to this type of learning from the students, as Participant 2 articulated:

They bring different ideas that they experience from other places and we want to know other realities, what you can show us from social work in Canada, that would be a great thing, to know how you work. My students would love to know, and I wonder how we can get that knowledge.

Furthermore, ‘we don’t have the newest methodologies or the current theories, but if another student comes and supports us, we can do things differently – we are open’ (Participant 4) and ‘we might also learn from you’ (Participant 3).

Additional benefits for the host organizations include networking opportunities that may translate into support and exchange of ideas, ‘since exchanges turn into a network, the ideal is to maintain links’ and as ‘a way to make what we do known [and in doing so] it changes a bit, this dark [negative] perception of institutions’ (Participant 4). Moreover, IFE provides opportunities for institutions to collaborate on initiatives beyond the student field placements, such as collaborative research efforts and joint funding support opportunities.

Also, as Participant 1 indicated, immigrants and refugees accessing their services appreciate working with international volunteers and students because they have the ‘sensation of being understood as foreigners in Mexico’. Benefits can also be expanded to the local people outside of the host organization. For example, as Participant 1 noted,

There is an impact on Mexican students and Mexican youth. The fact that they see foreign students, particularly when they come from Europe, or the States or Canada, it has a particular impact. It makes them wonder why students from developed countries come to Mexico. It makes them question, it makes them wonder, it somehow motivates them to get involved.

Integration of students

Participants identified that the integration of international students into the host organization required planning to match student interests, objectives, and skills with the respective organizations’ profiles and activities. Planning would create a more valuable learning experience for students, benefitting both students and organizations. Participant 4 noted, ‘we would need a schedule because we have many activities’, and Participant 6 commented, ‘we would need to pay special attention to programming activities, [to] consider what areas can be adjusted to work in the given time’. However, flexibility and a willingness to teach to the individual students’ needs on the organization’s part, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach, was also recommended.

According to the participants, organizations needed to have a good understanding of students’ interests, skills and objectives for the placements in order to provide students with a valuable learning experience that benefitted both students and the host organization. Organizations would want to ‘know fundamentally why they want to do this visit, what is the objective, what is their intention’ (Participant 5). Participant 6 also noted that organizations need to know:

What are their necessities, the worries they have and what they want, so we can see if we can meet that, or not? This way, they don’t come with expectations that can’t be met, so as not to create frustration.

The importance of understanding students’ level of education was highlighted in order to tailor the IFE to the meet the students’ unique learning requirements, as Participant 4 elaborated:

I think it depends on the level of understanding of the exchange student. It is quite different from a bachelor’s degree to someone with a PhD or with a masters, or an academic. This would either increase or decrease the kinds of activities we could do.

Participant 5 further explicated,

I think we should identify the framework within which this exchange takes place. In the first place, if this is within an undergraduate program, or if we are talking about postgraduate, masters, doctoral levels . . . because, yes, a social work student’s profile is very different than the profile of an engineering student.

Therefore, as eluded to by Participant 8, it may be prudent to plan placements according to discipline and ‘maybe to separate by professional areas’.

Participants also outlined the need to ensure that international students are supported during their placements, as

being in another remote country, alone, produces a psychosocial process. We should be careful because when there is an exchange, students have psychosocial and biological imbalances, and we must be sure universities pay attention and ask how students are. (Participant 4)

Understanding that ‘every student is someone who needs to be managed individually because everyone is so different’ (Participant 6) was also a consideration in providing appropriate support.

Several participants noted the importance of establishing an observational period during which the student observes and/or shadows their host supervisor to develop an appropriate understanding of the organization’s purpose and the role of the student as a visitor.

Evaluation

Evaluation of the IFE from the perspectives of student learning and the potential benefit to the host organization was espoused as an essential component of the IFE. Specific factors for evaluation included ‘that the organization gains knowledge and that the student gains knowledge’ (Participant 1). Similarly, Participant 2 queried, ‘How can we be sure they [all exchange participants] get something out of this experience? Not only students, but everyone who participates here’. The importance of evaluating students’ overall experience was also raised: ‘how they feel at the end of the trip, what were their experiences, what they learned the most’ (Participant 3). In this regard, Participant 7 asserted,

[t]here are two important aspects. First, cultural: How does this experience nourish you as a person and in your culture? On the other side, professionally, what does the intern want? . . . It is about trying to achieve what we as an institution want and what the student wants as a professional.

Respondents recommended conducting a qualitative evaluation, consisting of discussions or an exit interview, as many of the outcomes, they suggested, could not easily be quantified. Participant 9 offered, ‘maybe at the end there is a focus group where they can say what impact they think the experience had or something like that’. Participant 3 clarified that the format could be

. . . a group session, and I would like the professors to participate with me in coordinating this session and conducting the session of course. We might prepare some questions and one part might be an oral part and the other part might be a written part because some people are shy and they don’t speak a lot, but we might read what they think.