Lost Opportunities for International Learning and Understanding at the World Cup
Are We Losing Similar Opportunities with Study Abroad and International Students?
Gary Rhodes
Associate Dean, International Education & Senior International Officer,
College of Extended & International Education
Director, Center for Global Education
California State University at Dominguez Hills
The World Cup in Brazil has captured the interest of more in the U.S. than ever before (looking at TV and online viewing). As I’ve discussed in reflection on the 2012 London Olympic Games, high profile sports like this gain positive attention on the world outside the U.S. Although we would like the U.S. and world press to recognize the important work we do in international higher education and the changes we support for U.S. students who study abroad and international students who study in the U.S., the media attention only seems to arise when a U.S. student is in crisis abroad (U.S. study abroad student Amanda Knox convicted of murdering her British roommate in Italy) or an international student is in crisis in the U.S. (international student death during the 2013 Boston Marathon, international student shot near university in Los Angeles, etc.).
As with the 2012 London Summer Olympics, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and now the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the media coverage began with concerns about safety problems, high amounts spent on building stadiums, and problems with implementing these high profile events. The media was looking for protests and problems in Brazil, but these have been overshadowed by a positive tournament so far.
Other than a bite here and some possible game fixing there and challenges to some referee calls and a limited number of protests, most of the coverage around the world has been generally positive, focused on the athletes and the results, and gathered the interest of citizens of countries where teams are from as well as others interested in the sport of football (soccer).
I think that one of the interesting challenges for U.S. citizens who were supporting the U.S. team until it recently lost to Belgium is… “Who should I root for now”? The answers I’ve heard haven’t really included much depth. They may relate to an individual player or who might win. The focus on Brazil itself hasn’t included too much depth either. From the perspective of an international educator, it would be nice to be able to reflect on the additional knowledge gained by spectators about the country and host cities in Brazil, the countries represented by the 32 teams in the tournament, and the connections made between athletes, coaches, and spectators at the World Cup in Brazil and watching from around the world.
However, I would guess that if you quizzed most players, coaches, or spectators about Brazil’s politics, economy, environment, culture, etc., the responses would be superficial at best. If you asked about the other 31 countries represented in the World Cup, I would expect that any knowledge provided would have existed at the same level before the competition began.
The question I ask in the title is whether we can say as much as we’d like to about what U.S. students learn while studying abroad, what international students learn while studying in the U.S., and what U.S. students learn about the international students on their campuses.
The Center for Global Education developed the World Wise Athlete Website (www.worldwiseathlete.com) before the 2012 London Summer Olympics as a way to think through what could be done to further engage athletes, coaches, and spectators in issues that promote deeper understanding of global issues, a broader knowledge of the host and participating countries, as well as a highlight of ways that athletes are giving to others. We updated the resource before the 2014 World Cup to reflect and update those issues.
Much of this content was based on the online courses developed by the Center for study abroad (globalscholar.us) and international students in the U.S. (ustudy.us). Each of those resources contains a pre-departure online course, and while abroad (or in the U.S.) course, and a re-entry course. We have taken a significant amount of this content and integrated it into the Terra Dotta content library.
Without designed learning and reflection, will international learning outside of the classroom be accidental? Without designed outreach on campus and in the community, will faculty, staff, and students gain a greater understanding of what study abroad students learned while abroad or the knowledge and culture that international students bring with them? What can we do to highlight what students have learned and done so that the media can highlight more than tragedies in the U.S. or abroad?
As we think about the end of the World Cup of Football (Soccer) on July 13th, take a moment to think about the question of what have athletes, coaches, and spectators learned about Brazil and the 31 countries around the world who participated. In the same way, I hope that on our campuses, we go beyond numbers of study abroad and international students to think about what faculty, staff, and students have learned about the countries where study abroad students have gone and the countries where international students have come from at the end of each academic year.