Whose Benefit? Disrupting Discourses on DEI and the Positioning of Racialized International Graduate Students

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 3:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Language Ideologies, Power, Resistance in Educational Spaces

Abstract

This research examines how social discourses and institutional language position racialized international graduate students as passive beneficiaries or burdens within Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) frameworks at a Western Canadian university. Through a case-study approach involving a survey of 30 students, an interactive wheel of privilege and a campus map and semi-structured interviews with 15 participants, the study foregrounds students’ narratives to interrogate how DEI initiatives are experienced and understood. Findings reveal that prevailing discourses exaggerate the benefits these students receive from DEI efforts, often masking the performative and inconsistent nature of such initiatives. Participants used the research space to challenge deficit-based language and reclaim agency by articulating the nuanced impacts of these policies on their academic and social well-being.

Author

• Tanya R. Manning-Lewis, Thompson Rivers University