Introduction

Abstract

“The pursuit of learning beyond the boundaries of one’s own community, nation, or culture is as old as learning itself,” observed Cora Du Bois, the author of a 1956 survey entitled Foreign Students and Higher Education in the United States. “It stems,” Du Bois continued, “from the human capacity for curiosity and adventure … [and] reflects the ability of human beings to communicate with each other at varying levels and with varying sophistication across the barriers of social particularities.”¹ Citing the many presumed benefits of international exchange and study abroad in a shrinking world, Oliver J. Caldwell, writing a decade or so later, affirmed, “We need a constant cross-fertilization of ideas between the many cultures of mankind. A logical function of education, in a world in which men and women everywhere have no alternative but to live as members of one community, is to serve as the medium whereby people become acquainted with each other.”²