Date of Award
Summer 8-2025
Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Global Inclusion and Social Development
First Advisor
Dr. Angi Stone-MacDonald
Second Advisor
Dr. John Saltmarsh
Third Advisor
Dr. James L. Soldner
Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore homestay participation through the lens of hosts’ lifeworlds in a university Swahili homestay program in Tanzania. Primarily, the aim was to examine the extent to which hosts negotiate, interpret, and make meaning of homestay participation through host–student interactions as they engage with foreign college students from primarily Euro-American backgrounds. In light of the citizen diplomacy efforts in global education to foster mutual understanding through language and cultural learning programs, both foreign college student sojourners and host families are impacted by cross-cultural interactions. Empirical studies have highlighted the need for more research into host participation based on two knowledge gaps within the homestay: (a) hosts lived experiences and perspectives in the homestay environment as part of foreign language learning abroad literature, and (b) a limited understanding of homestay participation featuring hosts’ livelihoods in less commonly taught language (LCTL) communities in nontraditional destination (NTD) contexts. To move beyond dominant Euro-American discourses on host family narratives, this study combines the two domains to provide empirical data by emphasizing the importance of contextualized discourses and centering host family voices in an East African context. This exploratory study employed phenomenological inquiry and grounded theory analysis techniques to examine host family experiences and perspectives. For the conceptual framework, a transdisciplinary lens was applied drawing from Adichie’s The Danger of a Single Story with support from relevant theoretical underpinnings of situated learning, communities of practice (CoP), and legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) to substantiate hosts’ narratives. Based on multiple semi-structured interviews conducted with eight host families and one program coordinator over a year, findings led to three primary themes of hosts’ motivations, benefits, and challenges. The overarching theme of relational linkages was also identified as central to host families’ livelihoods as they navigated their roles and responsibilities within the homestay and in their communities. A multilayered approach to engagement fostered mutual support and learning beyond program parameters among stakeholders on four levels: between hosts, hosts’ children, foreign students, and neighbors and the surrounding community. Furthermore, findings uncovered local knowledge bases expressed through oral genre as symbolic resources to mediate teaching and learning experiences through Swahili storytelling, proverbs, songs, and other axioms to convey metaphorical lessons embedded in daily life and within the homestay. The primary theoretical contribution of this study was an emergent contextually-grounded theoretical description of an explanatory framework. A transdisciplinary relational linkages framework: The homestay as a learning community of practice describes hosts’ contextualized practices and the underlying processes of homestay engagement in Mwenyeji. Ultimately, the lifeworlds of Tanzanian host families can help broaden stakeholders’ understanding of diverse ideologies, worldviews, and practices across various linguistic and geographical contexts. This study has important implications to help inform theory, policy, and best practices and determine how Tanzanian hosts can be better supported and meaningfully involved through the co-construction of knowledge sharing in future program planning, design, and development.
Recommended Citation
DeMatteo, Kaia, "Beyond a Single Story: A Transdisciplinary Study Contextualizing Host Families' Lifeworlds in a University Swahili Homestay Program in Tanzania" (2025). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 1077.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/1077
Comments
Free and open access to this Campus Access Thesis is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. Those not on campus and those without a UMass Boston campus username and password may gain access to this thesis through Interlibrary Loan. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the “Off-Campus Users” button.