Appreciating international scholarships’ potential impact in Palestine’s extreme context

The article presents original findings of career gains perceived by 32 Palestinian alumnae and alumni of 12 master’s scholarship programs. I draw on these original findings in responding to one key research question: How do scholarships work, or not, as a pathway of development in Palestine? I argue that scholarships evidently work well as such because of key mechanisms underlying their perceived career impact: Expanded access to career resources, experiential (global) learning, key skills cultivation, specialized knowledge advancement, and enhanced employers’ appreciation. However, I outline limits of this argument by reflecting on the difficulty of recreating the efficacy of these mechanisms and scaling up their perceived impact in Palestine’s currently extreme context. I finally extend a call for increased, serious reflection on ways to defy this difficulty. • Palestinian students report making key career gains of international scholarships. • Individuality of scholarships impact should not discourage more investment in them. • “Our politics don’t work that way…” – participant. • Serious reflection is needed to start steering scholarships impact in Palestine.