Student exchange in primary and secondary education and its effect on language gains and intercultural competence. What we do (not) know

Abstract

This contribution offers a systematic review of European research on the effectiveness of student exchange during primary and secondary school for linguistic and intercultural development.

Complementary to regular foreign language instruction, student exchange programs (longer and shorter ones) offer an opportunity for immersion in the target language and culture. At the tertiary level, mobility programs are often an integral part of the curriculum. At primary and secondary level, they are less common and less institutionalized but still a regular phenomenon at least in Europe.

Meanwhile, there are a number of state-of-the art articles and literature reviews dealing with student mobility (Borràs & Llanes, 2021, Isabelli-García et al., 2018, Llanes, 2011; Tseng et al., 2021 and Yang, 2016; Roy et al., 2019). What is common to all these reviews is that most of the treated literature focuses on tertiary level education, thus involving university students. Younger learners are only marginally considered. To date only the review by Borràs and Llanes (2021) and the meta-analysis of Tseng et al. (2021) include studies involving participants at primary or secondary school level and these studies clearly represent a small portion of the covered literature. If we are, however, interested in the effects of SA more holistically and long-term or for different age groups, we must also investigate SA programs and formats at lower educational levels.

The review presented in this contribution specifically targets the underresearched population of primary and secondary students. Unlike previous reviews, it includes literature in languages other than English (German and French in addition to English) as well as gray/fugitive literature in order to prevent a publication bias. In my contribution I will first outline the study selection criteria, search process and coding procedure employed for the review. Then I will present systematized findings on how effective student exchange is in primary and secondary schools with respect to the development of language and intercultural competencies. The contribution will conclude with an identification of research gaps and directions for future research.