Educational Travel: The Role of Gender Stereotypes Shaping Students’ Transformative Experience

Travel serves as a tool for inner transformation, and educational travel is one form of transformational travel. However, despite their recognition as a niche market, educational travelers, such as international students, continue to be understudied, especially from a gender perspective. As gendered differences are observed in tourism research and gender stereotypes originate from culture and family traditions, this study seeks to answer the following research question: How are gender stereotypes experienced within the context of international students’ mobility experience? This research examines the transmission and dynamics of gender stereotypes and its implication on international students’ mobility experience. It explores students’ interaction and level of involvement with gender stereotypes within different social and relational contexts, and the change processes as a result of these dynamics. Thirty-three in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with international students from several nationalities who have finished one of the three types of Master’s degree in Tourism, at the University of Girona, Spain. This paper indicates that (a) women and men are still associated under different gender stereotypes, (b) values originating from gender stereotypes evolve according to individuals’ socio-cultural interactions, and (c) these dynamics of gender stereotypes can be experienced under the role of the spectator, spect-actor, and actor.