International Students in the US: An Empirically-Based Call to Social Responsibility

• In Event: Highlighted Session: The social responsibility of higher education: What do we owe, and to whom?

Proposal

Introduction

This study is aimed at understanding the impact of COVID-19 on international students, mainly examining their experiences after instruction moved online, with a focus on the role of social support, financial wellbeing and psychological stress. This study shows that this population deserves more attention in times of crisis as the one caused by the effects of the pandemic.

This study is timely and important for several reasons. First, it contributes to the literature on international student experience, with a special focus on how critical situations that cannot be controlled by the university impact student well-being. Second, as opposed to much of the literature that groups together all international students, this study provides empirical evidence on the different experiences and challenges faced by subgroups of international student according to the level of study, where they were living after the universities’ moved in-person classes to online. This proposal fits with the conference theme as international students have often been conceptualized as


Literature

International students are subjected to different stressors, primarily related to their life and their academics. Previous research has shown that having a strong social support system mediates the effects of these stressors (Bender et al., 2019; Li et al., 2010; Misra et al., 2003). These social support systems for international students can consist of family and close friends back home as well as different connections in the host country including conationals, other international students, local/domestic students, faculty or staff, or a combination. Research has found that the latter—having acquaintances from a mix of different backgrounds—has the largest positive effect in the students’ feeling supported and integrated (Bender et al., 2019; Gómez et al., 2014; Shu et al., 2020). Students with higher perceived support from the faculty at their host institution reported feeling less lonely (Brunsting et al., 2019).

Another important and very unfortunate affectation has been discrimination. While theories like neo-racism (Lee, 2017b; Lee & Rice, 2007) and neo-nationalism (Lee, 2017a; Lee et al., 2017) have shown a constant stratification in the experiences of international students being discriminated by their perceived race or national origin, events like this pandemic exacerbate discrimination (Humans Right Watch, 2020). In the US, mostly fueled by the President’s rhetoric of calling COVID-19 ‘the Kung Flu’ and ‘the China virus’ (The White House, 2020), many international students have been targeted both within and outside their campuses (Cheng, 2020; Juan, 2020; Liao, 2020).



Methods

This study followed a qualitative approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews at three research universities. Two institutions are public and another one private. One of the institutions is located in the Southwest region, one in Mid-Atlantic and one in the Northeast. This diversity also captures a wide range of experiences. Each of the institutional cases included 7-8 participants, for a total of 22.

The interviews were transcribed and coded for themes following an applied thematic analysis approach (Guest, MacQueen & Namey, 2011). The categories were then entered on qualitative analysis software and we ran frequency searched with the purpose of confirming thematic coverage (Boreus & Bergstrom, 2013).

Findings

Before the crisis reached the United States, these students were concerned about their loved ones at home, and there were some uncomfortable moments in class when the discussion of current events circled around COVID19. As news to the pandemic spread, many Chinese students dealt with ridicule as Chinas “was called backwards and blamed for the virus.” Students reported instances of xenophobic and racist discrimination. This was particularly salient among students who could phenotypically be considered Chinese or of Asian descent. One student narrated the following experience: “When I entered the elevator, I was the only Chinese student there, and some white students repeated ‘Chinese virus’ behind me. I felt angry, but more frightened, what if they hit me?”

In addition, participants in the study reported a deep of vulnerability about their situation as the COVID crisis converged with policies toward international students that reflect hostility. These include restriction on the number of online courses that international can take, even as campus reopening have proved to be unsafe.

Contribution

The CIES theme this year invites us to reflect about social responsibility. While international students have been often conceptualized as revenue sources, many provinces in Australia, for instance, have garnered support for international students. This contribution fits with the Higher Education SIG because it explores transnational mobility from an equity perspective.

Authors

• Santiago Castiello-Gutiérrez, University of Arizona

• Kelber Tozini, The George Washington University

• Gerardo Blanco, Boston College