Educational Travel: The Role of Gender Stereotypes Shaping Students’ Transformative Experience

Karla Quintero () and Konstantina Zerva ()
Additional contact information
Karla Quintero: University of Girona
Konstantina Zerva: University of Girona

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2025, vol. 26, issue 2, No 18, 1117-1136

Abstract: Abstract Travel serves as a tool for inner transformation, and educational travel is one form of transformational travel. However, despite their recognition as a niche market, educational travelers, such as international students, continue to be understudied, especially from a gender perspective. As gendered differences are observed in tourism research and gender stereotypes originate from culture and family traditions, this study seeks to answer the following research question: How are gender stereotypes experienced within the context of international students’ mobility experience? This research examines the transmission and dynamics of gender stereotypes and its implication on international students’ mobility experience. It explores students’ interaction and level of involvement with gender stereotypes within different social and relational contexts, and the change processes as a result of these dynamics. Thirty-three in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with international students from several nationalities who have finished one of the three types of Master’s degree in Tourism, at the University of Girona, Spain. This paper indicates that (a) women and men are still associated under different gender stereotypes, (b) values originating from gender stereotypes evolve according to individuals’ socio-cultural interactions, and (c) these dynamics of gender stereotypes can be experienced under the role of the spectator, spect-actor, and actor.

Keywords: Student mobility; Educational travel; Acculturation; Gender; Transformative experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-024-01217-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joimai:v:26:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s12134-024-01217-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-024-01217-x

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().