A growing number of private schools, sister cities and exchange programs offer short-term exchanges for middle school students. The benefit of a foreign exchange is not just learning a new language. Those who learn to engage in a different culture, particularly at a young age, gain an interpersonal flexibility and worldliness they will carry throughout their lives. “Them” and “us” perspectives wither, as does the anxiety that many people feel when faced with new environments. Scholars would describe part of this as a shift from an ethnocentric to an ethnorelative viewpoint, as returnees begin to evaluate people on their values and perspectives rather than their origin or ethnicity. Exchanges prepare students for a global society and international careers. Research by the American Field Service found that students who have done exchanges are twice as likely to live and work abroad in the future.
Perhaps the best-known organizer of middle school trips abroad is People to People, a company that has sent about 50,000 people to seven continents in the past 50 years. People to People sends middle-schoolers to Europe, Australia and the Galapagos Islands on educational and adventure exchanges lasting two to three weeks. To ensure their safety, the organization equips students with GPS-enabled cellphones, provides local guides to accompany student groups, has multilingual medical specialists on call and offers 24-hour phone support for parents.
Private schools offer another route for middle school students to study abroad. For example, Westtown, a Quaker school in West Chester, Pa., sponsors exchanges with schools in Spain, France, Martinique, Germany and Japan, although these are primarily for high school students. Bancroft private school in Worcester, Mass., sends middle school students with the will and the means abroad to study language and culture in France for about 10 days. Bancroft students, and their families, then host the French students that hosted them. Such family exchanges may be easier for parents to endure, as they know the host family that is putting up their child will soon be sending their own child away.
Sports offer yet another means for exchange. For example, every few years, parents, coaches and others in San Mateo, Calif., raise money to send Little League baseball teams on a 10-day trip to San Mateo's sister city, Toyonaka, and have been doing so safely since the 1960s.