What is it about?
Study abroad programs in college tend to attract more women than men. Why is that? Well, it turns out that it is important to look at which women are studying abroad. It is really mostly elite women who study abroad. These are the same women who tend to go far away to school and who are interested in building cultural capital for career purposes. Study abroad is working to help these particular students build the kind of resumes they need for the kinds of highly cultural, cosmopolitan work they envision for their futures. We might even call this "venture capital."
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Why is it important?
Many colleges wonder why they are not able to attract more male students into study abroad programs. Knowing that this is not just a gender gap but rather a gender&class gap can help these colleges diversify their programs so that all students benefit.
Perspectives
I directed a few study abroad programs as a faculty member, and it was always a struggle to find good male applicants. This mattered in terms of hostel rooms (often gendered) and other practical matters, as well as the overall perception that the programs were "for women" only. When I asked people why this was so I always received a host of interesting responses - everything from young men's immaturity to their video-game-playing habits. The sociologist in me thought these explanations were, well, a little unfair, and so I decided to look closer and see if I couldn't find a better explanation.
Allison Hurst
Oregon State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘Class and Gender as predictors of study abroad participation among US liberal arts college Students’, Studies in Higher Education, February 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2018.1428948.
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