Centering Equity in Community College Virtual International Exchange

Abstract

Using data from two community colleges in the US southeast, this study uses an equity-focused research lens to address two complementary purposes. First, it situates community college virtual exchange programs within a pre-existing program typology to explore how well these programs are represented. Second, it examines demographic characteristics of community college students who participate in virtual exchange and compares them to students who study abroad to provide insight into the extent to which community college virtual exchange programs improve access to international education. Results indicate that while community college virtual exchange programs often fit well within the typology, broad, open-access exchanges were not as well-described, nor were programs that were not explicitly connected to a cost. Regarding access, findings suggested that some demographic groups, particularly Black students, were less likely to access virtual exchange. Institutional structures related to a student’s degree program offer a potential explanation for this finding.

Future Potentials for International Virtual Exchange in Higher Education Post COVID-19: A Scoping Review

“…Five of the twenty-one were theoretical or conceptual articles [8][9][10][11][12]. The majority of the articles, 13, were peer-reviewed research studies [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Of these studies, eight employed qualitative methods [13,[15][16][17]19,23,25,26].…”

“…One article employed a quantitative pre/post survey design [18]. Eight studies adopted mixed-methods approaches combining descriptive statistics or an analysis of surveys/questionnaires with either qualitative interviewing, a thematic analysis of open-ended survey/questionnaire responses, a thematic analysis of student reflections, or a document analysis [10,14,[20][21][22]24,27,28].…”

“…Of the research studies in this review, an analysis revealed three populations in focus. Three articles researched IVE at the institutional level [15,24,25]. These studies varied from typologies [24] to the accreditation of IVE offerings [15] and decentralizing hegemonic norms in global North/South tensions [25].…”

“…Three articles researched IVE at the institutional level [15,24,25]. These studies varied from typologies [24] to the accreditation of IVE offerings [15] and decentralizing hegemonic norms in global North/South tensions [25]. Two articles focused on instructors and ad-ministrators [15,23].…”

“…Of the twenty-one studies considered in this review, six were published in 2021 [11,16,21,26,27]. Thirteen articles were published in 2022 [8][9][10]14,15,17,18,20,[22][23][24][25]28]. Two articles reviewed were published in 2023 [12,13].…”