Franziska Wächter / Rebecca Ranz
Students learning in an international digital space can experience tension and even panic due to: Difficulties in communicating in the English language, differences in culture, sense of instability, alienation and distance. Leaning on the conceptual framework of Barlow’s (2007) Third Space which is characterized as a precondition for the articulation of cultural differences. A space of strangeness, a borderline place where cultural differences touch and become "moments of panic" (Bhabha, 1994: 207). Four mutual international digital courses were taught (from 2019 till 2021) by the Social work schools of the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Dresden and Sapir college in Israel. With an adaptation of the Third Space to International digital learning, students were able to reflect on their feelings, thoughts and re- examine beliefs and original perceptions of the "other".
In these courses Israeli and German students reflected on their anxiety of being misunderstood and their frustration of not being able to articulate their words. Mutual history of German and Israel was reflected upon with fear of hurting /harming and turning the space into a conflict zone. German students were afraid to bring up the pro-Nazi/politically right- wing demonstrations taking place in their area and Israeli students refrained from presenting the complexity taking place in their country around the issues of refuges / asylum seekers and the Israeli /Palestine conflict.
In the future we hope to conduct a research on reflection, at this point after teaching four mutual international online courses, it is our assumption that if students are exposed to the third space concept in the beginning of online courses it can enable students to professionally reflect.
Dr. Rebecca Ranz (PhD.) is a Senior Lecturer at Sapir College Israel. Graduated (B.A., M.A. & PhD.) from the social work school of Bar- Ilana University Israel. She is the International Programs Coordinator of the social work School at Sapir College. Her main areas of research are: Religion, Spirituality & Social work in addition to International Social work. She has developed live and international virtual courses on integrating spirituality and religion into the social work profession.
Dr. Franziska Wächter is Professor of Sociology and Empirical Research Methods at EHS. She studied sociology, economics and organisational psychology at the University of Munich. From 2000 to 2010, she was scientific researcher at the German Youth Institute in Munich. From 2006 to 2010, she was Professor of Sociology at the University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Her main research interests are on youth and politics/ political participation and orientation, with a focus on disadvantaged young people, migrants, young people in poor neighbourhoods (social space/network analysis), media use and international relations in teaching and research at higher education institutions.