Abstract
Drawing on a qualitative interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA), this Dissertation in Practice explored the essence of lived global citizenship (GC) experiences of senior-year undergraduates within Study Abroad Programs (SAPs) at Jesuit Catholic universities in the U.S. Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus. Grounded in the Jesuit mission and the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP), and inspired by Pope Francis’s call to build stories that uplift humanity, the study addressed the gap between theoretical underpinnings and practical enactments of GC in higher education. In so doing, Chapters One to Three set the context for examining GC through key frameworks (UNESCO, Oxfam, OECD, and IAJU) and detailing the methodology. Ten diverse students from six Jesuit institutions were selected through purposeful sampling. Data collection included semi-structured interviews, post-interview narratives, and memos, which were analyzed using hand-coding and HyperRESEARCH across three coding cycles. Chapter Four identifies six themes that helped shape GC development among participants. In this process, Chapter Five shows how the Reflective Global Citizenship Integration Model (RGCIM) emerged as a framework for embedding structured reflection and justice-oriented GC into SAPs. Despite challenges such as institutional resistance and political polarization, the study findings and the proposed RGCIM are found to support some of the key existing leadership theories as a transformative path for forming critically reflective, justice-driven global citizens.Keywords: global citizenship (GC), care crises, Jesuit higher education, Ignatian pedagogical paradigm (IPP), the common good, justice, cultural immersion, reflective global citizenship integration model (RGCIM)