Master of Arts in International Education (Part-Time Hybrid) SIT Graduate Institute

Learn to lead education programs in communities around the world without leaving your job. Earn your master's degree online with brief summer residencies.

Please note that SIT will make every effort to maintain its programs as described. To respond to emergent situations, like COVID-19, however, SIT may have to change or cancel programs.

Why A Hybrid Master In International Education?

Intercultural, international-based education connects and engages communities as it values differences, confronts inequality, and recognizes common struggles. SIT’s programs in international education develop reflective educational leaders who are able to contribute to these processes by opening the world to new generations, advocating for a local agency and intercultural communication, and supporting transformative settings where self-empowerment and human potential can flourish.

SIT created the first MA in international education two decades ago and today offers this popular master’s degree online to busy full- and part-time professionals. The program features short, intensive summer residencies and carefully developed online coursework built around our proven experiential learning.

Customize your program to fit the unique demands of your career and long-term professional goals by choosing from a variety of electives focused on leadership, peacebuilding, language education, international development, humanitarian assistance, and intercultural service. You may also conduct independent studies or transfer up to six credits from another institution to advance your career objectives.

Start with a two-week summer residency on our scenic Vermont campus, where you will meet your cohort and faculty advisor, pursue your coursework, and receive an introduction to SIT’s reflective practice—our structured approach to learning that lets you apply your coursework to your ongoing professional activity for credit.

For the remainder of the summer and into the following spring, you will study for your master’s degree online alongside your advisor and cohort, with the support you need to attain professional expertise as an international educator focusing on global studies, program and curricula development, administration, advising, and research skills, among others.

In the second year of your studies, you will reconvene with your cohort in Vermont, review what you have learned, and reconnect during a one-week summer residency. After studying online for the rest of summer and fall, you will complete your coursework that spring, conducting individual research, and presenting a capstone paper.

This program spans six semesters, with 10 to 15 hours of coursework a week and reflective practice. Designed especially for aspiring professionals, this primarily online master’s degree program will guide you in meeting the immense challenges of the international educator, positioning you for rapid advancement in the field.

Program Sites

Part-Time Hybrid Format

• Courses take place almost entirely online
• Brief summer residencies in Vermont

SIT’s Vermont campus

Summer residencies and capstone presentations typically take place on SIT’s Vermont campus, or online virtually.

Vermont is at the forefront of sustainability, education, and regeneration. New England is a haven for start-ups, transition towns, community-owned forests, artisanal food and beverage companies, sustainable farming, eco-architecture, green energy, and many environmental and social justice organizations. SIT’s beautiful southern Vermont campus offers woodland trails, hiking, running, and cycling, as well as a private library, study rooms with mountain views, and an entertainment space where students often gather at the end of the day to socialize. You will also be a few miles from downtown Brattleboro, which offers an array of shops, restaurants, and eateries.

Coursework

International education professionals are most effective when they understand the context, issues, skills, and possible paths forward in their field. Become an effective educator through a carefully designed combination of faculty instruction, individual practice, analysis, and experience. Our part-time, hybrid format allows you to complete most of your coursework for this international education master’s degree online so that you can stay in your job and community. Students also have the option to take field courses and study abroad in a range of exciting, global locations.

Through SIT’s experiential learning model, you will examine the historical, theoretical, and social foundations of the international education field; design a variety of educational programs; and develop and conduct field-based research projects. In doing so, you will learn about advising; exchange management; non-formal and community education; volunteer program management; language teaching administration; conflict transformation; international education development; and social justice education.

By the completion of the program, you will be prepared to run educational programs for any age level in your home community, nation, or abroad in traditional or nontraditional schools, nonprofit organizations, governmental offices, refugee camps, or shelters.

This program requires completion of the Language and Culture Proficiency Requirement for graduation.

Semester Details

With SIT’s experiential curriculum, you’ll learn to put theory into practice. In addition to core courses, a broad range of elective choices lets you focus on topic areas that will help you meet your career goals.

The program spans six semesters, totaling 36 credits. Curated online coursework combined with limited residential coursework and reflective practice within your ongoing professional activities concludes with a final capstone paper and presentation. While you fulfill your degree requirements, you will have the opportunity to customize your learning according to your interests through both mandatory and elective coursework listed below.

Core Coursework (18 credits)

You are required to complete between 10 and 15 hours of coursework each week. Assignments typically include readings, electronic group work, electronic postings, papers, and projects. Through the coursework component, you will acquire critical theoretical knowledge and new professional competencies. The following courses are required:

• Foundations in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management – 3 credits
• Practitioner Inquiry – 3 credits
• Theory, Practice, and Policy of International Education – 3 credits
• International Education Program Planning and Design – 3 credits
• Advanced Concepts in International Education – 1 – 3 credits
• Advanced Concepts in International Education 2 – 3 credits

Electives (4 credit minimum)

You can satisfy the program’s elective requirement in a number of ways including by selecting SIT courses, pursuing independent study, or taking a course at a local institution and transferring the credit to SIT. Please note that in the last situation, the course must be at the graduate level and the institution must be accredited.

Reflective Practice (12 credits)

Reflective practice is a structured approach for you to apply learning from your coursework to ongoing professional activity. You’ll receive course credit for documenting the integration of your knowledge and skills in a professional context while remaining engaged with faculty and other students.

Capstone Paper and Seminar (1 credit)

Demonstrate, assess, and synthesize your learning through the preparation of a capstone project and participation in a one-week capstone seminar held multiple times each year. Researching and writing the capstone paper takes you deeply into the experiential learning cycle, where you’ll explore the meaning of your reflective practice experience, integrate theory and practice in a written and oral presentation, and make a contribution to the field of international education. Seminars are held virtually in May and December and either virtually or face-to-face in August.

Program Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the program, students will be able to:

Knowledge

• Understand and articulate how the historical context and social, political, economic, and cultural forces shape education around the world.
• Articulate a critical understanding of education systems around the world with an emphasis on social justice, equity, inclusion, and diversity.
• Demonstrate knowledge of influential theories in the international education field.
• Understand the perspectives, relationships, roles, and influences of the stakeholders in the international education field.
• Articulate how power, privilege, and oppression mediate educational practices around the world.
• Articulate how international education policy is developed and implemented at the institutional, local, state, regional, national, and international levels.

Skills

• Apply fundamental research skills including conceptualizing, designing, conducting, and presenting original research in the international education field.
• Design, deliver, and evaluate international education programs (including proposal preparation, needs assessment, curriculum design, budgeting, human resource management, health and safety, crisis management, marketing, recruitment, and evaluation).
• Create and implement international education-related content through writing, facilitation, and public speaking.

Attitudes

• Promote equity, inclusion, diversity, and social justice in education.
• Uphold high ethical standards and critical reflexivity in all aspects of one’s professional work.
• Value reciprocity in knowledge- and skills-sharing.

Career Paths

Students who have graduated with this degree work in careers such as the following, among others.

• Study abroad advisor
• Education consultant
• University professor, assistant, or associate
• U.S. embassy education specialist
• Program designer
• Exchange program manager
• Youth leadership program administrator
• Community educator
• Admissions director
• Country development officer
• Refugee resettlement officer
• International programs admissions