Associate Professor Montclair State University Montclair State University Montclair, New Jersey, United States
Abstract: Expanding our connections internationally and facilitating cross-national community engagements in the courses we teach add great value to all participants. This proposal will share the experience of implementing an international pen pal project as part of an undergraduate course on immigrant families in the Northeastern university. The connection was established between two communities: undergraduate students majoring in family science and human development in the U.S. and middle-school students in western Ukraine. Pen pal partners communicated via email, postcards, social media, and videos. Partners exchanged care packages with items representing their respective cultures and countries and also created joint media projects that further facilitated cross-cultural learning. Teachers maintained regular contact throughout the year to work out issues related to communication, time difference, and the impact of war and blackouts, in order to support learning despite very difficult conditions. This presentation will describe the benefits, challenges, and lessons learned in implementing the project as well as share the results of student assessments and reflections. Preliminary findings show that participating in this project helped deepen U.S. students’ learning engagement with the course concepts, increased their awareness of global issues, and enhanced their cultural competency for future work with immigrant and refugee populations. Ukrainian students and educators gained valuable experience in practicing English with the native speakers and received powerful motivation to keep learning for a better future and post-war rebuilding. Collectively, we created an engaged virtual community, in which we responded to the challenges outside of our control and developed meaningful connections.
Narrative: Background
This proposal shares the experience of implementing an international pen pal project as part of an undergraduate elective course titled “Immigrant Families.” We are in the Family Science and Human Development (FSHD) department that prepares students for working as teachers, immigrant advocates, refugee resettlement workers, and other family services professionals assisting diverse populations in our communities. Engaging students in an international pen pal project can promote a deeper understanding of such course concepts as push and pull factors in immigration, voluntary and non-voluntary migration, refugee and displaced persons’ experiences, and international families. A deeper understanding of these concepts can be gained from being connected to a pen pal in Ukraine, a country that is currently at war with invading Russia, which resulted in a major refugee crisis and displacement of the population.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, over 113,000 Ukrainian refugees arrived to the United States under the “Uniting for Ukraine” program. This is a tiny number, compared with more than eight million Ukrainians (mostly women and children) that were forced to flee their homes and seek refuge across Europe (UNHCR, 2023). These displaced Ukrainians are the most recent refugees, along with Afghans and Syrians, who have settled in the U.S. We need to prepare our students to be culturally competent professionals working with refugees in our schools, agencies, and communities. Connecting U.S. students with international pen pals creates opportunities for global community engagement, opportunity to expand their worldviews and global awareness. Such experiences can increase our students’ engagement with the theoretical course materials, increase cross-cultural competency and readiness for working with immigrant and refugee populations resettling in the United States.
Literature Review
Communicating with pen pals through letter writing is increasing in popularity in educational settings. Teacher education students at the U.S. universities have partnered with public school students to help motivate reluctant writers (Hendrickson & Peterson-Hernandez, 2020), acquire cultural literacy and better prepare for teaching diverse populations (Thompson McMillon, 2009), as well as gain experience in working with students with learning disabilities (Stanford & Siders, 2001). International pen pal projects have been implemented between the students in the United States and their counterparts in Spain (Pizzuto, Marquez, & Guerrero Ruiz, 2022), Belize (Kirshner, Tzib, Tzib, & Fry, 2017), and Malawi (Barksdale, Watson, & Park, 2007) and have been found to have many benefits for their participants. Such projects provide unique opportunities to create international friendships, make meaningful connections, and develop understandings of other people. International pen pal collaborations help increase U.S. participants’ global awareness, develop cultural competencies, and prepare them for a diverse workforce, career and life readiness (Kirshner et al., 2017; Pizzuto et al., 2022). An exposure to a culture that is different from their own provides all participants with important cross-cultural learning (Barksdale et al., 2007) that transforms them from pen pals to ethical citizens in the global village (Kirshner et al., 2017). Related to the present proposal, the pen pal project was developed as an international community engagement experience in order to enhance student learning of the course materials related to immigrant and refugee families, theories of acculturation, migration, displaced persons, and transnational families.
Methods
This presentation will be based on the implementation of an international community engaged project that took place during the 2022-2023 academic year, with two cohorts of students in the U.S. and in Ukraine. In the fall of 2022, a group of 24 undergraduate students in FSHD was matched with and collaborated with the same number of school-aged teens in Ukraine. In the spring of 2023, a second cohort of students (N=20), took part in the collaboration with a new group of Ukrainian counterparts. Pen pal communication took place during the two semesters. Both sides produced introductory class videos and exchanged photos. To spark conversations, participants were provided with a detailed list of topics and questions to discuss. Partners communicated via email and postcards, and later through social media, messaging apps, and videos. On the students’ initiative, care packages were exchanged as the friendships developed. Students had an option to prepare creative presentations with their pen pals about any topic or issue. In the fall, this aspect unfortunately was not realized due to massive missile attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and resulting blackouts. In the spring, we have had more success. At the conclusion of the semester, participants wrote final reflections on their pen pal experience and its relevance to the course theories, materials, and future work.
Analysis and results
Throughout this international engagement project students and teachers communicated virtually. During the in-person class meetings, we discussed informally how it was going and if any support or modifications were needed. At several points in the semester, students wrote reflections on their experiences. A formal assessment of students’ learning, partner engagement, and project feedback was conducted at the end of the semester. Currently, I am in the process of data analysis of this final assessment and plan to complete this task in the summer. The preliminary results are promising and show multiple benefits to the participants as well as some areas to improve upon in the future. Benefits of the Pen Pal Project to students on both sides included: interacting with English learners/ speakers; bridging meaningful international friendships; providing/receiving mentoring and support; learning about another country, its people and culture; developing cross-cultural perspective and appreciation of positives and negatives in one’s life. It helped U.S. students develop a better understanding of immigration-related course concepts and theories, the impact of war on families and children, as well as challenges and resilience of teachers and cross-national school system. In this project, pen pal partners responded to the challenges outside of their control and provided/ received support as part of an international community we created.
Implications As future educators and family services professionals, students who participate in the international community engagement programs can increase their cross-cultural competency, expand their awareness of global issues, and become better prepared professionals for working with immigrant and refugee populations.
