A true alternative?: A discourse analysis of the Alternative Spring Break’s online marketing material
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Volunteer tourism, otherwise known as voluntourism, is generally defined as a way in which young, unskilled, individuals from the Global North can spend 1 to 4 weeks abroad, contributing to community development or environmental sustainability. Voluntourism is a growing phenomenon and many universities are responding to student demands, while also capitalizing on the key demographic to whom voluntourism is marketed (young students). The Alternative Spring Break (ASB) is one such program that provides students an opportunity to volunteer abroad or in Canada for 1 to 4 weeks. This paper examines the ASB websites of Carleton University, Ryerson University and the University of Western Ontario and uncovers, through a discourse analysis, several challenges with the language of an “alternative experience.” This paper suggests that ASB markets their programs in such a way that students believe they will make a difference abroad, while simultaneously experiencing something alternative to everyday life. Although marketed as such, ASB in fact perpetuates two often cited thematic frames found within the voluntourism literature: neocolonialism and neoliberalism. Through this analysis, this study suggests that the way in which ASB trips are marketed does not fully inform students of the effects of their choice to travel abroad, and thus students perpetuate the idea that they are superior and have come to “help” the “Other.” Key Word: Alternative Spring Break, Voluntourism, Alternative, Neocolonialism, Neoliberalism
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.013 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.011 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".