Perspective Transformation Amongst Student Interns

This case study is an attempt to understand the impact of an International Service-Learning (ISL) experience on changing the world view or perspectives of 25 student participants in a three month internship to East Africa through a large Canadian research intensive university in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. Using Kiely’s (2004) model of emerging global consciousness and a post-colonial lens, findings indicate that participants’ ‘common sense’ assumptions are disrupted and that they experience complex, ambiguous and varied shifts in their world view. The study identifies some of the experiences and contexts that contribute to perspective transformation and highlights the significance of self-reflexivity and mitigating asymmetrical power relationships in the process. Importantly, this study provides some evidence that participants in the ISL program have been able to persist up to six years after the internship experience, to translate their new world view into meaningful action in the face of dominant hegemonic Canadian values