The Racialization of International Student Mobility: Roots, Effects, and Implications for American Higher Education Institutions

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

The Racialization of International Student Mobility: Roots, Effects, and Implications for American Higher Education Institutions

My dissertation investigates how international student mobility (ISM) in the context of American higher education institutions (HEIs) has become increasingly subjected to an emergent paradigm of racialized otherness. To contextualize my inquiry on the paradigm of racialized otherness, I choose to focus on a specific and vibrant body of the international student population enrolled in American HEIs, i.e., undergraduate Chinese international students. As an illustrative case, examining the paradigm of racialized otherness vis-à-vis the undergraduate Chinese international students aims to offer a distinctive yet nonexclusive lens to probe into the racialization of ISM on a broader scale. My dissertation consists of three studies. Study 1 adopts the method of critical discourse analysis to examine and identify the undergirding constituents of the paradigm of racialized otherness. Study 2 draws on the framework of item response theory (IRT)-based modeling to construct and validate a measurement instrument that taps into the students’ perceptions of the undergirding constituents of the paradigm of racialized otherness. Study 3 takes the approach of multi-sited ethnography to explore how to leverage the affordances of the students’ everyday learning and living experiences to tackle the paradigm of racialized otherness. The findings of my dissertation are intended i) to inform the development of design-based initiatives, both within and outside formal instructional settings, to address the ongoing and intensified trend of racialization concerned with ISM, and ii) to facilitate the conceptualization of a policy agenda for re-envisioning and promoting equity and diversity as entailed by the continuous internationalization of American HEIs.

Author

• Peng Yin, Berkeley University of California