Shaping transnational learning positions and understanding social work in context-students' experiences of a short-term exchange program

Embedded in the discussions on how the internationalization of social work education can benefit concrete social work practices, which are inevitably contextual, this study analyzed students' experiences of participating in a short-term exchange program between a Norwegian and Chinese university, and explored how they benefited from the program and international experience in terms of their professional development as social workers. The analysis builds upon data from participant observations, focus group interviews, and individual student essays. Using a transnational perspective, we argue that the exchange program with its joint teaching activities created 'transnational learning positions' through which the students developed critical reflections on the meaning of contexts in social work. The analysis demonstrates that transnational learning positions entail a process of repositioning through which the students, as learning subjects, are displaced from the familiar learning context and replaced into a position of uncertainty, which is shaped through their encounters with a different or contrasting context. This involves not only the physical encounters that result in embodied learnings of contextual differences, but also the intellectual encounters in the group discussions.