In recent years global citizenship education has moved from the periphery to the core—to the point that developing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to do collaborative work across geographic and cultural boundaries is not a ‘nice-to-have’, but rather essential to success in the 21st century.

This movement has, in turn, sparked the ‘professionalization’ of all aspects of global education programming. From within and outside of schools, a growing community of practice continues to create and codify those practices for experiential education, logistical coordination, and risk management that make up standards for excellence.

In the realm of experiential education, the philosophical unification has been evidenced in the gradual shift from anecdotal stories of student growth to a fact-based analysis of the elements that led to those transformations. This study represents an effort to advance this movement, attempting to better understand what works in global education programming.