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The Nebraska/Australia teacher exchange program, 1988-1992: Personal, cultural and professional experiences of the participants
Abstract
The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore and understand the personal, professional, and cultural experiences of 14 Nebraska teachers involved in an exchange program with the country of Australia. The focus of the study was concentrated in the personal, professional and cultural areas with major emphasis on three separate time periods: before leaving home, the year of teaching in Australia, and the return home, or reentry, phase. The fourteen participants in the study were all teachers from the State of Nebraska with professional assignments in either an elementary or a secondary school. These teachers came from varied school system sizes, ranging from large metropolitan centers to very small towns. The length of their teaching experience in Australia was one year, from January through December. They exchanged homes, jobs, cars and pets with an Australian teacher. Some of the teachers were married with spouses, and/or in some cases children, that accompanied them. Among the teachers participating in the study, four were single. Data was collected primarily from January through June, 1993. Collection strategies included interviews, phone calls, journaling, and observations and examination of artifacts. The fourteen teachers examined collected data to verify accuracy. Through the use of qualitative research methodology, a perspective of selected Nebraska teachers' personal, professional and cultural experiences as they related to three time periods was determined. The major time period themes examined were: (a) before leaving for the teaching position, (b) the actual year of teaching in Australia, and (c) upon returning home from the year's experience.
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching|Cultural anthropology
Recommended Citation
Freberg, Marian Frances, "The Nebraska/Australia teacher exchange program, 1988-1992: Personal, cultural and professional experiences of the participants" (1994). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9500603.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9500603