Sustainability of Teachers' International Experiences: Conditions for Institutionalization of International Program Outcomes

Abstract

Since World War II international exchange and training programs for educators have increasingly played an important role in developing prospective consciousness and awareness of cultural diversity and global interdependence among teachers. However, international programs have always depended on extra educational factors such as political, ideological, cultural, or financial circumstances. As a result, program sustainability and proper institutionalization of program's results that are a testimony of achieved success, are both matters of concern for program developers and alumni. This paper identifies factors and contexts that facilitate sustainable development of international programs and institutionalization of their outcomes. Two cohorts of international teacher program alumni from Russia and the United States were interviewed about the impact of exchange programs on participants' status and pedagogies. The study demonstrated that respondents consider three factors, namely, motivational, administrative, and cooperative, most critical for the institutionalization of international program results.