“First, do no harm.” Navigating paradigms of power in U.S. education abroad to the Global South: a global health education case study in Córdoba, Argentina

Education abroad enjoys significant visibility as a form of internationalization within the landscape of U.S. higher education. A public consciousness around the virtue of this programming has been well established and cultivated for what it can bring to the lives of U.S. students. Scholars and the public alike cite and celebrate its academic, professional, and personal benefits, as well as the intercultural learning, foreign language learning, and academic content learning that it facilitates. Historically and presently however, there has been little attention paid to how differentials in power, be they economic, political, or cultural, are experienced, particularly when U.S. students travel to the Global South. This study’s aim is to examine the experiences of a cohort of U.S. global health students and how they understand power differentials in their global health education program to Córdoba, Argentina. This research uses a qualitative case study methodology. Unique to this case is that the provider, Child Family Health International (CFHI), embodies a socially-conscious and ethics-informed ethos in its global health programming. The study concludes that a strong learner-teacher dynamic was struck with U.S. students positioned as the learners and Argentines as their teachers. Also, students largely adopted and embodied an asset-based orientation (not deficit) of Argentina, its people, its culture, and its medical system. Additionally, there was a notable duality in the embodiment of characteristics of the neoliberal consumer and the global citizen. Overall, in this case study, traditional power paradigms were moderately disrupted, rather than simply reinforced and reproduced. This study demonstrates the potential, when realized, for educational interventions and intentional pedagogy in U.S. education abroad programming to act as counteracting forces to traditional hierarchies of global power and as pathways to greater global equity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Gahimer, Erin L.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Witt, Allison
• Lee, Sharon
• Herrera, Linda
• McCarthy, Cameron
• Castillo, Nathan

• Global Health
• Global Health Education
• Case Study
• Global South/north
• Post-colonial Theory
• Neoliberal
• Neocolonial
• Power Differentials
• Internationalization
• Education Abroad

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Erin Gahimer

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124255

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F124255