Erlebnisse, die Verandern

The authors examined whether international youth exchanges (short-term group programs) promote the personal development of the participants and whether these effects persist years after participation. To this end, 120 former participants from Germany and abroad were questioned using partially structured interviews and 535 from Germany using a questionnaire. Long-term effects on self-related characteristics and competencies that are closely related to developmental tasks in adolescence were reported. As far as the biographical processing of the experience is concerned, the exchange together with other experiences often contributed to a certain development ("mosaic effect") or initiated further activities ("domino effect").