In their collective tendency to describe their work in spiritual terms, informants reveal the root metaphor of the industry's culture: they talk about work as if it were a religion. In fact, one informant actually said, "We really believe in the value of [what we do] . . . to the point of it being a religion" (A, 1-10).

In what do the informants believe? One reply was succinct: "It's education, stupid!" (B, 2-2). Another was more descriptive: "[Our mission] is to continue promoting international understanding amongst the world's people, and our modest contribution to that is to offer [educational] programs to high school students and teachers . . . it's a fantastic service . . . the impact . . . we have on young people's lives, the very positive impact" (C, 1-16).

More subtle, but perhaps more powerful than outright statements, are the metaphors informants used to characterize their work. One explained that it was the company's "mission" to "go the extra mile" — allusions that hail from the Christian faith, in particular. Other informants talked about how their work made "wonders happen" (C, 1-10) or "miracles" occur (A, 1-12). Still others spoke in terms of being "totally committed to the magic and wonder of it all" (B, 2-17). Along the same lines, and with striking consistency, informants described how their work (as manifested in the tours themselves) serves to "open" the travelers' "eyes" (P, 1-4, et.al) or to help them "see . . . other things" or to have more "foresight" (R-1-6) or even to "help realize dreams" (B, 2-1).

Likewise, informants describe a dedication to their work in terms that would suggest an "evangelistic" zeal: "we really, really believe . . . have dedicated our lives [to our work]" (B, 1-15); "you take it seriously, you take it to heart" (M, 1-12); "You just don't ever want to do anything else" (P, 1-4). Still others use Maslovian metaphors: "This kind of work connects you to the peak experiences people have. You help make those happen, and somehow they work for you too . . . a self-actualization that works in two ways" (A, 1-17), or "I am fortunate in my life that I have been able to make my vocation and avocation one" (Y-1-22).

Although the use of religious metaphor is not universal, the preponderance of evidence is compelling: Informants' stories and repartee (including their unique jargon, vocabulary, constructs, and metaphors) are characterized by transparent religious overtones and allusions; moreover, where references to religion are not made explicit, they are nonetheless implicitly present. Thus, the industry's culture is pervaded by religious symbolism and embodied in the root metaphor.

Historically, and as will be discussed further, these themes appear to have originated within the founding and early formative years of the entity founded by Markle, the American Leadership Study Groups (ALSG). For one thing, documents analyzed from entities that existed previous to ALSG did not employ this "language of religion" that is evident in ALSG's earliest documents. Moreover, when one compares contemporary performances of the religious metaphor with comparable performances that recall ALSG's early culture, the similarities are more than merely interesting; they are remarkable.

For example, one erstwhile member of ALSG's early culture describes its "mindset": "We were all in it together, like a mission of some kind. It wasn't like a job. We were in love with the whole scene." Similarly, there are claims that ALSG's early culture

gave [employees] a context in which they could perform and they did. Energetically. Heroically. They drew blood. They made a difference! They were making changes in the world with this educational travel they were involved in. Their work had visible effects.

Still another striking description of that culture is metaphorically related to the ancient Greek religion, Epicureanism:

You'd have to say that most of us in that company were inner directed . . . those of us there at the founding . . . [thought that] you were having fun if you were doing something exciting . . . .This sounds terribly '60s but we were "into" it; we were into it the same way that Sophocles was into playwriting . . . [that's called] eudimonia, meaning good, dimon one of the many words for the soul — a good soul in the sense of a soul that's doing well, that's functioning well. It's usually rendered as "the exercise of one's facilities along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope." . . . It was happiness in the Greek sense . . . Eudimonism . . . .It was the Epicureans, Epicures himself [who believed] that the highest form of happiness was pleasure in the mind. So Epicureans [we were, and] in the best sense, [Epicureanism] was indeed what we were doing.

And finally, one informant says very simply, "We were young gods."

At least one historical explanation for this phenomenon was offered:

[ALSG's contribution to the industry] was a style, a mode of presentation. ALSG took educational values, like austerity, international understanding, academic degrees, collegiality, all the rest of it, and painted the picture with those. We exploited the facts and bent them to our will. We created them in our image, if you will. ALSG was completely responsible for creating the mindset of educational travel.

Another agreed:

ALSG shifted the focus away from language to culture in the broader sense, to a larger, cultural focus. It was very . . . 60s. Take a theme and learn from it. Very much part of the "discover yourself" inward-looking kind of pattern. In short, ALSG stood for the romance of travel, and more to the point, the romance of learning.

It is also interesting to look at evidence from a somewhat different perspective. One informant from the early culture declared that the "idea of this industry as having something comparable to a religious mission is like blowing up a kernel of truth into a bag of popcorn;" nonetheless, the same informant described that "kernel of truth" in the following terms: "The truth is that you're exposing young people to the world and that does have some life-changing impact that accomplishes a social good . . . if you change 100 lives, no one life, that makes a difference." Thus, it seems that even those who might reject outright the conscious notion that the industry "is" a religion nonetheless use the language of religion to describe the industry's mission and purpose, both historical and contemporary. Furthermore, this same informant also declared: "I don't think the industry's changed much over the years [from the early ALSG days]. It's the same basic product as in the beginning, the same basic mode of delivery, the same reasons for doing things. That's remarkable."

In sum, informants' repartee, particularly, reveals religion to be the root metaphor of the student travel industry; moreover, performances of this theme seem to have been engendered within the early years of the ALSG/Markle culture.

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All dissertation material copyright © Linda Gayle Lyle, 1998. All rights reserved.