Practitioner preparation for addressing race and racism in higher education praxis: Implications for graduate education

• In Event: Addressing race & racism in global higher education through research, teaching, and praxis

Proposal

PRESENTER 1 will discuss the importance of embedding principles of equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice (EDIJ) in international higher education (IHE) practitioner-based graduate programs. Considering this EDIJ lens, this presenter argues that it is critical to also include in the curriculum a focus on how to engage with matters of race and racism and to consider these concerns from a global perspective.

Systemic and structural racism and whiteness (Suspitsyna, 2021) has implications for higher education and in the lived experiences of individuals who experience marginalization or privilege because of these phenomena (Flint, 2022). Yet, recent scholars (Buckner, et al.,2021; Baykut, et al., 2021) have noted that the practice of IHE has not fully considered the socio-political climate that should inform institutional internationalization strategies or how domestic and international students reflecting inbound and outbound mobility are impacted by issues of race, racialization, and racism (Lee & Castiello-Gutiérrez, 2019; Trilokekar & Kukar, 2011). Campus internationalization efforts and student mobility are some of the areas of practice that serve as the focus of IHE practitioners in higher education environments. However, though internationalized graduate curriculum may include an intercultural dimension (Sá & Serpa, 2020), there does not appear to be an explicit focus on addressing race and racism in practice. Recent events, including the xenophobic positioning of COVID-19 and the resulting rise of anti-Asian sentiment on university campuses, the differing racialized experiences of international students attempting to flee Ukraine, and the implications of the Black Lives Matter movement in higher education within and beyond the United States, highlight the intersecting domestic and international experiences of race and racism that shape the experiences of students and the IHE administrators that support them. Furthermore, these events underscore the importance of adopting an EDIJ lens in globally focused higher education graduate programs (Chow & Vital, 2019) and embedding race and racism as topics in IHE praxis.

In this session, this presenter will discuss how IHE practitioner-based graduate programs can A.) provide the curriculum and opportunities for graduate students to make sense of issues related to race and racism while in the classroom, and B.) the training to contend with issues of race and racism that may surface in their ensuing IHE practice.

Author

• Louise Michelle Vital, Lesley University