Higher Education as a “Smart” U.s. Foreign Policy Tool: Assessing the Attitudes of U.S. Trained Foreign Nationals
Abstract The objective of this qualitative study was to explore if the cultural immersion process towhich American Universities subject their international students leads to their long-term adoption of American values and opinions. Grounded upon the concept of smart power, Nye argued that the attractiveness of shared values can contribute to the management of global conflict. This policy perspective essentially positions higher education as a foreign policy tool. The results of this study provide insight into the attitudes, aspirations and other psychological variables that make up the psychographic profile of twelve interviewees through an analysis of their descriptions of their lived experience as international students. A key result is that the participants believed that their behaviors and attitudes towards the terms America, Americans and U.S. Foreign Policy were influenced by their U.S. educational experience. Keywords: Smart power, foreign policy, international students, student visa,global conflict, psychographic data.
Foreign Policy, Global Conflict, International Students, Psyschographic Data, Smart Power, Student Visa
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