Qaiser Seemi, Dimaras Helen, Hamel Paul
University of Toronto.
Department of Ophthalmology & Vision Sciences, Faculty of Medicine & Division of Clinical Public Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto.
Can Med Educ J. 2016 Dec 5;7(3):e31-e36. eCollection 2016 Dec.
Despite literature documenting limited and asymmetrical benefits along with ethical issues, short-term international volunteering is increasingly popular among North American university students as a perceived advantage when applying to professional healthcare schools or the job market. Academic institutions are also encouraging students to pursue international experiences in order to cultivate values as global citizens. These experiences are most typically limited to economically privileged students. Furthermore, international activities in developing countries often lack a pedagogy of social justice and may confirm a simplistic understanding of development. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire's "liberation pedagogy" provides a framework for understanding the limitations of international volunteering, whereby the presence of privileged volunteers implementing Western models of development may hinder aspects of local movements. Regardless, university students face intense competition in accessing opportunities, such as medical school, and pay large sums to participate in volunteering to strengthen their academic credentials. We propose that these students form "the voluntariat." They simultaneously play two roles by, first, contributing to the conditions that oppress the very communities in which they volunteer and, second, by playing a role as objects of oppression by the liberal institutions of learning and employment to which they are attempting to gain access.
尽管有文献记载了短期国际志愿服务的益处有限且不均衡，以及其中存在的伦理问题，但它在北美大学生中越来越受欢迎，因为他们认为这在申请专业医疗学校或就业市场时是一项优势。学术机构也鼓励学生寻求国际经历，以培养全球公民的价值观。这些经历通常仅限于经济上有特权的学生。此外，在发展中国家开展的国际活动往往缺乏社会正义的教学方法，可能会强化对发展的简单化理解。巴西教育家保罗·弗莱雷的“解放教育学”为理解国际志愿服务的局限性提供了一个框架，即有特权的志愿者推行西方发展模式的做法可能会阻碍当地运动的某些方面。尽管如此，大学生在获得诸如医学院入学机会等方面面临激烈竞争，并且为了增强学术资历而支付大量费用参与志愿服务。我们提议将这些学生称为“志愿ariat”。他们同时扮演两个角色，首先，他们促成了压迫他们所志愿服务社区的条件，其次，他们成为他们试图进入的学习和就业的自由机构的压迫对象。
