The International Student Experience in Canada: An Intersectional Analysis

• In Event: International students and family experiences

Proposal

The internationalization of higher education continues to be a key focus for Canadian governments and universities. Internationalization can take the form of the movement of Canadian faculty and students, the inclusion of international content in the teaching, research, and service aspects of the university, the recruitment and retention of international students, and the inclusion of key stakeholders in the execution of internationalization strategies (Canadian Bureau of International Education, 2018).

Of the aforementioned approaches to internationalization, the recruitment and retention of international students has been the major focus. The recruitment of international students has been primarily framed through a neoliberal lens, extolling the benefits of international students to the Canadian economy and university revenue. Additionally, the presence of international students is also seen as culturally beneficial, raising Canada’s profile as a multicultural, inclusive, and welcoming country.

The majority of research on international students in Canada has shown that after international students take up their studies at Canadian universities they are beset by a myriad of problems. These problems have included struggles with intercultural adaptation, credentialism, language difficulties, economic hardships and difficulty adapting to new academic norms. The research on these problems has primarily been conducted from a micro perspective, positioning international students at a deficit. Such a focus has meant that the challenges faced by international students are primarily seen as a failing of international students, chiefly based on their unfamiliarity with Canadian customs and norms.

Research on the international student experience has neglected to investigate whether the difficulties faced by international students are also a result of wider social structures, representations of international students, and Canadians across various media, and the regulations imposed on international students by government and university policies.

Using an intersectionality framework (Crenshaw, 1991), this paper presents the findings of a structural and representational intersectional analysis of the international student experience. Structural intersectionality is concerned with how wider systemic practices (i.e. physical and legal systems) limit the actual and perceived power of some groups Representational intersectionality is concerned with how the representation of subordinate groups contributes to their subordination. This paper moves past the representation of international students and also takes into consideration how the representation of Canadians contributes to the subordination of international students. For this paper, international students are defined as long stay students, pursuing full-time studies issued with a study permit by Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Students pursuing a full-time course of study face additional challenges not normally faced by students engaged in short-term student exchange programs.

In order to investigate how policies intersected, various government and university policies governing international students were identified and mapped. The structural intersectional analysis focused on the following questions

1.What are the government policies governing international students’ stay in Canada?
2.What are common university policies governing international students on campus?
3.How might government policies, and university policies intersect in ways that create challenges for international students on and off campus?

In order to investigate representational intersectionality, a critical discourse analysis was performed on various internationalization strategies of Canadian universities and the Government of Canada’s EduCanada website. The representational intersectional analysis focused on the questions below:
1.How are international students represented in internationalization strategies?
2.What socio-historical representations of their culture, ethnicity, country of origin, or race do international students face in Canada?
3.How are Canadians represented in marketing documents aimed at recruiting international students?
4.How might these representations converge in ways that create challenges for international students?

Author

• Shauntelle Nurse, University of New Brunswick