Reflections on ‘Exceptionalism’ and ‘Acceptionalism’

Abstract

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville introduced the concept of American Exceptionalism in his well known Democracy in America. Its subsequent use has been selective and politically pragmatic, serving a range of pens and purposes, most recently becoming a justification for exclusion and bigotry. This runs counter to the progress higher education has made to internationalize its curricula and to significantly expand the opportunities for students to study abroad over the recent decades at a time when the need for international awareness and understanding is at its greatest. The future success of international programming and institutional partnering will be judged by its ability to prepare students for the real life problems differing peoples are facing, going beyond the most common travel and culture programs which have come to characterize higher education for over 50 years. While the original educational and cultural aspirations for study-abroad, as well as the pragmatic bases for institutional partnerships certainly remain, both the dramatic changes in the delivery of higher education and the significance of the broader challenges societies are facing, call for an expansion and re-examination of the role of national and international partnerships and our expectations for undergraduate study-abroad. Furthermore, it is argued that through a greater application of a more experiential approach to study-abroad, students will develop a richer and more insightful understanding of why all cultures for reasons of their own should be considered exceptional; an understanding that is inclusionary - protagistically replacing exceptionalism with acceptionalism.