Enhancing Equitable and Inclusive Mental Health Support for International Students in U.S. Higher Education: Challenges, Gaps, and Approaches

• In Event: Roundtable Session 8
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Language and literacy: the role of heritage language and family for education, policy and peace

Proposal

Mental health challenges are a pressing social issue affecting 50 million people across the U.S. (Reinert et al., 2023), and college students are no exception. In response to these trends, many U.S. higher education leaders have prioritized addressing mental health issues on their campuses (Mowreader, 2023). However, despite this increased focus, several scholars have argued that U.S. colleges and universities often overlook or fail to provide culturally relevant and inclusive support for the mental health challenges faced by international students (Chen et al., 2020; Koo et al., 2024; Koo & Nyunt, 2020; Maleku et al., 2021). This neglect may stem from the fact that while U.S. higher education institutions aggressively recruit international students as a financial resource, they often fail to adequately support them once they arrive (Lee & Rice, 2007; Tozini & Castiello-Gutiérrez, 2022). Additionally, the history of internationalization in higher education and student mobility, which is deeply rooted in global white supremacy, imperialism, and colonialism, is often minimized in favor of economic and market-oriented rationales (Stein & de Oliveira Andreotti, 2016; Stein, 2017). This focus may contribute to the neglect of international student populations in campus initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The lack of attention to international students’ mental health is concerning, especially given research evidence indicating that international students are more prone to mental health challenges than their domestic peers due to factors associated with navigating a new environment, but are less likely to seek institutional counseling support (Koo & Tan, 2024; Zhang et al., 2022; Zhou et al., 2021) and have higher dropout rates from counseling sessions compared to domestic students (Nilsson et al., 2004). Therefore, it is crucial to understand international students’ experiences with mental health challenges and to develop equitable and inclusive programming, services, and practices tailored for them on college campuses. The purpose of this conceptual paper to explore how mental health services on college campuses can become more culturally equitable and inclusive for international students by drawing on existing literature and innovative approaches in mental health care.

To this end, we first provide an overview of international students’ experiences in U.S. higher education, focusing on their mental health challenges. Next, we discuss several gaps in the conceptual and practical approaches for supporting international students’ mental health as identified from the literature review. Finally, we present several conceptual frameworks and implications for mental health counseling practices for this population, explicitly rooted in social justice advocacy. Overall, the objective of this roundtable session is three folds: 1) to facilitate a conversation regarding international students’ mental health challenges and inclusive and culturally relevant practices and conceptualization, 2) seek feedback on the overall direction of the paper, and 3) find avenues for collaboration with the presenters and audiences. To this end, this session will first provide a brief summary of the work-in-progress paper with the handout, pose questions pertaining to the objectives of the session, and invite feedback, questions, and discussion among participants.

Authors

• Sarang Kim, University of Oklahoma

• Seyoung Hong, Michigan State University