Identity Journey Mapping in Study Abroad: An Instructional Activity to Explore One’s Identity
By Hyesun Cho & Josh Hayes
Studying abroad can be an eye-opening and exciting opportunity to enrich one’s life, expand one’s career goals, and cultivate intercultural awareness. However, it can also be a time of change, adjustment, stress, and self-reflection. Navigating a new place and culture can be both exhilarating and disorienting. Many students may feel a sense of loss regarding understanding their identity and cultural awareness. Immersion in different cultures and social interactions can lead individuals to question their self-perception and the ways others perceive them. During a faculty-led study abroad program in Korea, we developed an instructional activity called identity journey mapping for U.S. college students. The activity aims to achieve the following goals: (1) help students navigate and express their identity while studying/teaching abroad in a foreign country, (2) allow students to control the narrative they share with their classmates through a creative medium, and (3) build deeper student-teacher relationships to help instructors learn more about the unique experiences and backgrounds the students bring to the classroom. Identity journey mapping can help students explore their layered identities via social markers including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, and class, in more tangible, guided manners. Along with creating a visual map, having students write a narrative that weaves the images presented on the map provides an opportunity for critical reflection on their journey.
Using this strategy for an exploration of identity has two distinct features that make it an engaging and creative teaching resource for all educators. First, the students are empowered to express themselves how they wish to their classmates. Second, the written narrative, which should only be shared between the teacher and the student, allows the teacher access into understanding the unique perspective of the learner to cultivate more empathy toward their lived experience and foster a better sense of belonging in the classroom. For study abroad program instructors and directors, identity journey mapping activities can help students develop their critical cultural awareness skills through intentional prompts and creative freedom.
As discussed in our article in the current issue of The Educational Forum, “I Hold the Key to the Cage and Nothing Can Keep Me There Without My Permission”: Exploring Gender Identity Through Identity Journey Mapping in a Study Abroad Program, identity journey mapping is not just for study abroad programs alone. It is an activity that can be used in any class or discipline. For instance, our article investigated how female students of varying ethnicities and backgrounds examined and expressed their gender identities in both United States and Korea. Whether through a linear progression or an assortment of layered images, each student’s map and narrative reflected their gender identity and how their gender identity impacted their interactions with others in the study abroad context. From a teacher’s perspective, this activity enabled us to help them navigate the study abroad program in Korea while student teaching and develop a sense of belonging within the classroom community. We believe identity journey mapping can be beneficial in any educational space to enhance a student’s critical self-awareness and cultural awareness of others around them.
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Dr. Hyesun Cho is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Kansas (KU). She is the co-founder of a faculty-led study abroad program and has been serving as the faculty director since 2014. Through this study abroad program, undergraduate and graduate students from KU travel to Korea to teach English as a foreign language (EFL) in high school classrooms. She has been working with a range of language learners and teachers, including EFL students and teachers in secondary schools in Korea. Her research interests include social identity, critical literacy, and critical pedagogy.
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Josh Hayes is completing his PhD studies at the University of Kansas. Josh is a TESOL certified educator and has worked with English language learners for over 25 years. His research interests include identity, generative AI, and critical studies.
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