2. Virtual Exchange as a tool for inclusion in international education?

The first argument to be considered in relation to inclusion in VE is perhaps the most common one: Does VE include cohorts of students who would not normally be able to take part in physical mobility programs?

Sabzalieva et al. (Reference Sabzalieva, Mutize and Yerovi2022), in their large-scale study for the UNESCO on virtual approaches to international education, certainly believe so. They argue that virtual approaches have “excellent potential to open access and opportunities to students who would otherwise be unwilling or unable to travel due to physical, social, or financial reasons” (p. 15). The authors see these groups as including disabled students, migrant and refugee students, students with limited financial means, part-time students, and students who also work or have caring responsibilities. They also point out that virtual approaches provide a much more environmentally sustainable approach to international learning than physical mobility programs and they report on research that shows the emissions from international student mobility in higher education to be at least 14 megatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year (p. 15).

These arguments are supported by the Stevens Initiative. In their VE Impact and Learning Report (2023), they state:

The organization's surveys on VE practices present compelling evidence that their supported programs consistently attract a significant proportion of participants who belong to marginalized identities and communities within the realm of international education. To illustrate, during the years 2021 and 2022, more than half of the U.S. participants in their VE programs self-identified as a race or ethnicity other than white. Furthermore, 11% of respondents in the fall of 2021 and 9% of respondents in the spring of 2022 acknowledged having a disability. Additionally, over 30% of all participants reported having a parent whose highest level of educational achievement did not surpass a bachelor's degree, a commonly used indicator of socioeconomic status referred to as “first-generation” students.

Likewise, Stevens’ findings indicate that in the case of participants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, 27% of respondents identified their parent's highest educational attainment as below a bachelor's degree. Moreover, 67% of respondents reported either currently attending or having attended a non-private secondary school that follows a domestic curriculum, which serves as an indicator of socioeconomic status within the MENA region.

Other studies have shown how VE can also serve to include cohorts of both foreign language students and teachers who reported themselves to be studying or working in contexts of isolation and who do not have easy access to physical mobility programs for training or education. For example, the Erasmus+ European Policy Experiment project VALIANT developed a program of Virtual Innovation and Support Networks that were defined as VE programs that bring together in-service school teachers, student teachers, and experts in facilitated online collaboration around real-world educational issues. In the study of almost 700 participants who took part in 24 of these VEs, participants were asked if the VE had impacted on their sense of professional isolation. Significant numbers reported feeling less isolated professionally and feeling that they belonged to a professional global network of educators (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Impact of Virtual Exchange on professional isolation

In their open questions, some language teachers explained how participation in structured online interaction had helped them overcome their sense of professional isolation:

However, while this research from the Steven's Initiative and the VALIANT project may seem to suggest that VE can provide international learning experiences to many groups that may not be able to benefit from physical mobility programs, there is also evidence to suggest that there are also barriers to accessing VE as a learning tool. Stallivieri (Reference Stallivieri2020), for example, in her article about the challenges to the introduction of VE in Brazilian higher education, argues that in order for students to have effective access to this learning activity, it is first of all necessary for institutions to overcome three “gaps”. The first of these is the linguistic gap as most Brazilians are not comfortable communicating in foreign languages. The second of these is the digitalization gap due to lack of access to technology and bandwidth, and the third is the structural gap that refers to lack of institutional and curricular flexibility and support for such initiatives.

In other words, it is important to consider that not all countries or educational systems are operating in sociocultural contexts that are suited for the uptake of the activity. In order for students and teachers to benefit from VE, the activity requires participants to have good internet access and a certain degree of communicative competence in the language of communication, as well as an educational system that will permit the integration of the activity into curricula and programs of professional development.

The question of internet access is one that appears regularly in the debate about VE. But this is not only limited to issues of bandwidth in certain countries, but also in regard to the extensive use of videoconferencing technology in online intercultural interaction. Over the past number of years, the use of synchronous video-based communication has become an integral part of most VE programs. While this has helped to make interaction more authentic and personalized, it has also raised issues of how students can integrate videoconferencing conversations into their daily lives. An interesting blogpost by Bali and Meier (Reference Bali and Meier2014) points out that videoconferencing meetings are incompatible with certain time zones and national holidays and are biased against people with families and busy lives outside of the classroom. They also give an advantage in the interactions to native speakers or advanced learners of the language of communication and demand high levels of bandwidth that may not be available to all users.

For these reasons, it is also important for VE practitioners to incorporate asynchronous, text-based communication in their exchanges in order to ensure an inclusive approach that caters for students who may not have access to the technology or the physical spaces required for successful videoconferencing meetings. Text-based asynchronous interaction allows those that may not be comfortable communicating in the language of the exchange time to prepare their messages and ideas, to review their language, and to check their ideas with local partners and their teacher before sending them to their international team. Text-based discussions are also documented so students and instructors can always view, evaluate, and build on all contributions. Finally, they support shy learners and those with difficulties using their microphone and camera.

3. Virtual Exchange as a safe space for foreign language learners?

One of the commonly mentioned advantages of VE in foreign language education is that it offers students a “first step” into using a foreign language with members of other cultures (EVALUATE, 2019). VE enables language learners the chance to have a structured engagement in the foreign language with members of other language communities with the support of their teachers. For many students, this is the first time that they will use the foreign language with someone outside of their own language classroom and, as such, this provides them with valuable preparation for more complex communicative situations when they travel to other countries. Interviews with students who had taken part in the VALIANT project clearly show the benefits of VE for language learners who are not used to engaging with others in the foreign language:

However, again there is evidence that VE may not be a panacea for all foreign language learners. O'Dowd and Beelen (Reference O'Dowd and Beelen2021), for example, remind us that VE is based on the principle of collaborative learning that may not be suited to all students and that teachers may not be familiar with: “[T]here are various other exclusion mechanisms that can play a role in online collaboration, such as pedagogies and forms of assessment that favour some students over others” (n.p.).

There is also the issue of whether VE may put students into communicative situations that they are not comfortable with or that are beyond their current level of competence. While teachers work hard to design VE tasks that reflect the language levels of their students, it is sometime inevitable that students will find themselves struggling to communicate successfully in their international working groups. The following comment comes from a Spanish student who felt overwhelmed by the challenge of collaborating in videoconferencing sessions with international partners who she considered to be more proficient in English than she was:

While it is natural for researchers and teachers to focus on examples of VE that pushed students out of their communicative “comfort zones” (EVALUATE, 2019) and helped them to realize their capabilities for using their foreign language, it is also important to be aware of the negative impact on confidence and motivation that an unsuccessful VE experience can have on students. The careful scaffolding of tasks and effective group formation strategies are key to ensure that learners are not overwhelmed in their online intercultural interactions.

4. Can Virtual Exchange open our classrooms to cultures and regions not accessible through physical mobility?

A common critique of traditional study abroad programs is that they tend to focus on the same destinations. In Europe, for instance, both Ireland and the United Kingdom have benefitted economically from the huge influx of international students travelling to study and to learn English in countries where it is spoken as a first language. It is only in recent years, with the rise of English Medium Instruction programs, that other European countries have gained popularity as destinations for international study. Apart from issues of language, very often the destination for study abroad is chosen for reasons of practicality, with both course coordinators and students preferring countries that are easier or cheaper to travel to.

However, the emergence of VE has meant that students now have an opportunity to engage in contact with partners from countries that they would normally never consider for periods of physical mobility. Torres and Statti (Reference Torres and Statti2022) observe that “with the advent of newer technologies, locations for international focus are unbounded, allowing for visits to places otherwise not practical for university planning” (p. 24).

The opportunities that VE offers in this respect is evident in many of the programs that are financed by international organizations. The Stevens Initiative, for example, focuses on promoting VE programs between the USA and MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries. Their website explains that “[e]xchange opportunities between the United States and the Middle East and North Africa are particularly limited. There is a need in both the United States and the Middle East and North Africa for opportunities for young people who wish but are unable to study abroad” (2023, n.p.).

Similarly, the European Commission has increasingly used VE as a tool to engage European students with “third countries” outside of the European Union. In recent calls for VE projects, particular emphasis was given to Sub-Saharan Africa, for example (see https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/programme-guide/part-b/key-action-1/virtual-exchanges).

But numerous questions related to the purpose and intended outcomes arise when VE is employed in this manner. What are the motives for offering VE programs and not physical mobility? Is this due to reasons of cost and safety? Or are institutions in the Global North promoting online interaction with certain nations and regions in order to reduce or avoid incoming physical mobility from these countries? And can online intercultural exchange lead to any real change or improvement in the political or economic situation of disadvantaged countries? Or does this risk simply being a form of educational voyeurism – allowing students in the Global North to have first-hand experiences of poverty, war, or other political regimes from the safe distance of their classrooms and sitting rooms?

Practitioners have offered different answers to these questions. Dietrich (Reference Dietrich2022), for example, engaged graduate students in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) with adult learners of English in Afghanistan for synchronous online tutoring sessions. She clearly saw a value for the partnership and concluded that:

Guariento (Reference Guariento2023), on the other hand, is more sceptical. He reports on the English for Academic Studies Telecollaboration (EAST) project, which brought together engineering students in Scotland to work together with Palestinian engineering students in order to find technological answers to societal problems in the Gaza Strip. Unlike others working with similar partnerships, the author takes a more critical approach to the value and impact of VE that brings students from the Global North into contact with partners in economic and politically unstable contexts. He reports on reflections by participants that suggest that initiatives such as this may be “tokenistic” (p. 107) and he warns that “the emancipatory effects of online interaction should not be overstated (particularly in the Gaza Strip)” (p. 110). Nevertheless, he concludes that “[i]t is a pity (to put it mildly) that greater benefits do not accrue to the Global South students, but this does not in itself invalidate the project nor the concept of North-South pre-sessional project-work” (p. 110).

5. Can Virtual Exchange motivate students to engage in physical mobility?

A final issue to consider is whether VE can contribute to a more inclusive approach to international education by encouraging more students to become involved in physical mobility programs. Quite simply, the argument here is that VE and Blended Mobility can awaken students’ interest in international learning, help them to overcome their initial fears of intercultural contact, and motivate them to take part in long-term study abroad programs.

A large-scale study by Lee et al. (Reference Lee, Leibowitz and Rezek2021) would appear to confirm that this is indeed the case. The researchers followed 39,381 students through their entire academic career at a large American university in order to identify the impact of participation in VE on the probability of subsequent study abroad. They report that:

These results are confirmed in the initial findings of a study being carried out in the Netherlands. The program “Virtual International Collaboration in Higher Education” is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and helps lecturers set up or improve VE projects (https://visinhetho.nl/). Besides financial support through the grant, support is also offered in the form of advice and training. The research study that is evaluating the impact of VE on students found that over 60% of students strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement “Following my VE, I am now more interested in taking part in a physical international exchange than before” (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Virtual Exchange as a motivation to engage in physical mobility programs

Of course, the relationship between participating in a VE and later taking part in a long-term period of physical mobility is not straightforward. Lee et al. (Reference Lee, Leibowitz and Rezek2021) also recognize there is a risk that students may view VE as a way of “ticking the box” of their international learning experience and therefore not feel the need to engage in other international activities. Furthermore, proponents of physical mobility programs warn that institutions may use the numbers of students participating in online intercultural initiatives as an excuse to reduce funding for physical mobility. In the joint position paper by the European Students’ Union and the Erasmus Student Network (2022), the authors warn that virtual initiatives should not be confused with physical mobility:

Then, they go on to state:

I would agree with them that VE is not a replacement for study abroad programs and we should avoid situations where both activities are seen as competing for the same sources of funding. Instead, VE can complement physical mobility programs, it can be combined with physical mobility (in the form of Blended Mobility or Pre-Mobility programs), and we have seen that there is also evidence that it can promote later participation in physical mobility programs. There is clearly no reason why these two different activities cannot be used together effectively in universities’ internationalization programs. In this sense, discourses that seek to highlight the value of one activity over the other are not helpful.

6. Addressing issues of equity in the design of Virtual Exchange

We have seen until now issues related to VE's potential to include and exclude learners when it is employed in foreign language education. While it may be more accessible than physical mobility programs for many cohorts of learners, it can also have barriers to access due to issues of technological access and foreign language competence. There is also a risk that it could be used to limit physical mobility with certain regions or countries or that learners can use it as an excuse not to participate in physical mobility programs.

But it is also important to consider the issues of inclusion and equality in VE through the lens of how students are engaged in contact together. By this I mean that there is a distinct danger that VE and Blended Mobility programs that bring together students from distinct cultural backgrounds may simply serve to inadvertently reproduce relationships of inequality, neo-colonialism, and cultural domination or to reinforce cultural or national stereotypes. DeWinter and Klamer (Reference DeWinter, Klamer and Satar2021) are aware of this and warn that COIL – Collaborative Online International Learning (a well-known model of VE) – presents two notable contradictions to decolonized practice. These relate to the widespread use of English as a lingua franca in VE and, second, the fact that it is usually teachers from the Global North who provide training in online collaboration to their partners in the Global South.

Much has already been written about how the structure of international education programs and initiatives can reinforce negative images between the Global North and Global South. In relation to physical mobility programs, for example, Agreement et al. (Reference Agreement, Biraimah, Kurtz, Ullom and Guler2023) observe that “study abroad participants from the Global North often initially reflect an attitude of coming to help, instead of being more receptive to learning from their host communities” (p. 170), while Helm et al. (Reference Helm, Baroni and Acconcia2023) state that:

In the case of VE, equity depends greatly on how participants’ nationalities are positioned in relation to their partners within the exchange and what tasks they are required to carry out together. A review of some examples of online projects can help us to see three key challenges involved in establishing balanced and equitable relationships in VE – especially when learners from the Global North are brought into contact with partners from the Global South or from contexts that may be considered economically, physically, or socially disadvantaged in comparison with their partners.

The first of these challenges is that one of the partner classes and its culture may be treated or portrayed as an exotic learning opportunity or curiosity. For example, one short case study from the literature describes an American group of learners who exchanged emails with a group from Quebec for over a year and a half in order to carry out various tasks together. Each group was learning the other's language (English–French). The exchange is reported to have worked extremely well and the American group are said to have considered their Quebecois partners competent and highly proficient models for learning French. However, it was not until the two groups met at the end of the exchange that the American students were informed that their partner class actually consisted of deaf children.

It is questionable here if these classes were engaged in an equitable way in their online interactions together. The teachers undoubtedly meant well and intended to demonstrate to the American group that deaf children could be valuable partners, but one could also argue that there was a level of dishonesty underlying the exchange, and that for most of the project, students’ prejudices and stereotypes had been avoided rather than confronted. Instead of encouraging the American group to accept their deaf partners as equals, the disability was used to teach them a lesson when the exchange had ended. The Quebec group was not treated as equal partners in the way the exchange was conceived, rather their disability was treated as an exotic learning opportunity for their partners.

A second challenge to equity in VE partnerships is that the partner class and culture is seen to be somehow “in trouble” and therefore needing to be “saved” by their partners. This can be seen, for example, in the following example where international teams of Palestinian and American engineering students worked together to solve sustainability challenges and to develop green building designs for a Palestinian Refugee Camp. The designs were judged by a panel of experts in a final competition. As a reward, Palestinian students from the winning teams travelled to the United States to meet their counterparts and learn about green building there.

Again, there is no question that the organizers of this exchange intended to depict the Palestinian group as inferior, but nevertheless, there is a danger that one country is seen as helping the other rather than both sets of students learning about problems and challenges in both countries – therefore reinforcing power relationships between both sets of students. The problem that needed to be solved was in one of the two partner countries and the prize for the best team was a trip to the other one. How can such relationships of inequality be challenged? Perhaps the problems that the teams worked on could have been located in a third country – or in both the partner countries? Perhaps American students might have also benefitted from winning a trip to Palestine?

Finally, the third challenge to equity in VE can often be seen, not in how an exchange is structured, but rather in the way students interact with their partners. In these cases, students may be considered by their partners to be “unaware of the reality” about an aspect of their home culture and that the students’ role is to explain to them how they should understand the situation.

This is obvious in the following example where a student from Germany writes to his international partners in Israel. The students in Israel had just explained that their campus had been attacked by rockets and had told their German and Spanish partners about the fear they had experienced. The German student replied:

A second message from a student in the United States to her partner in Spain also reflects this attempted imposition of one person's set of beliefs on their partner:

In both cases, the students who had received the messages felt uncomfortable about responding and reported having the impression that even though the messages were couched in questions (“But can you understand the people in Gaza?” / “Do same-sex marriages in Spain have problems with roles, like in America?”), the authors had little interest in learning about alternative cultural perspectives and were instead more concerned about imposing their own views about the political or social questions under question.

These examples serve to illustrate the challenges to equity of engagement that can emerge in VE. While some of these challenges may be related to students’ own intentions to impose their own cultural beliefs, in other cases it is the structure of the VE itself that can serve to reproduce unequal relationships between countries or social groups. Teachers can help to avoid this happening by taking care to design tasks and projects that do not involve one class “helping” or teaching the other, but rather involve students in engagement where both sides stand to benefit and learn from their partners. Providing opportunities for all partners to present and express their cultural and social background in a respectful environment is also key to success. Finally, helping students to develop an interest in alternative cultural perspectives and beliefs can also lead students to listen actively to their partners, instead of seeking to impose their own cultural viewpoint. Wimpenny et al. (Reference Wimpenny, Finardi, Orsini-Jones and Jacobs2022), in their study of different VE programs that brought students from the Global North and Global South into contact together, argue that “values such as mutuality, inclusivity, equity (redress) and equality (equally valued) should guide all interactions in this space towards open and authentic interactions, promoting not only tolerance, but hospitality and appreciation” (p. 289).

An example of a VE project that reflects these principles is provided by Porto (Reference Porto2014). She reports on a potentially very sensitive VE between British and Argentinian students working together on the theme of the Falklands war in which both countries had fought against each other. Avoiding any possible discussions relating to the victor and vanquished, students from both countries collected interviews with veterans from both countries and produced documents and activities in their local communities aimed at supporting reconciliation between the two countries.