Expanding the Boundaries of College Classroom Beyond the Ocean

Abstract

The study described in this chapter aimed at exploring the transformation in a group of education students' notions of democratic values regarding the education and learning environments for young children through an international field experience that took place in the Swedish context. The author adopted Freire's “critical consciousness” concept to encourage the participants to go through cycles of reflection on their lived and past experiences. The researcher used qualitative research methods to study the phenomenon by analyzing the participants' field observation notes, reflection papers, and forum discussion. The results show that the participants went through cycles of reflection between the American context and the Swedish context of education. This study abroad program became a transport for students to move out of their existing realities and observe different possibilities and interpretations of an early childhood education system.