“I know it’s not right, but what can I do?”: Coping with microaggression and discrimination as an international student

• In Event: Virtual Roundtable Session 2
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Negotiating Belonging in Education: Identity, Power, Peace and Resistance

Proposal

This presentation is based on research which used co-cultural communication theory (CCT) (Orbe, 1998) to study the social experiences of international graduate students when engaging in small talk in an additional language. Initially developed to describe the communicative experiences of traditionally marginalized individuals, CCT provides a valuable framework for understanding the communicative experiences of international students.

The context of this study is that the growing number of international students in Canada is placing pressure on policy makers and educators to recognize the need to support these individuals as they adapt to new learning and living environments. Research shows that informal social interaction with peers and instructors play an important role in academic success (Thomas, 2012; Tinto, 1975, 2006; Wilcox et al., 2005) and personal well-being (Sawir, et al., 2008). Small talk, a significant component of social interaction, poses special challenges for students who speak English as an additional language (Spencer-Oatey, 2018; Xu, 2022). Therefore, it is important to examine the lived experience of these students when engaging in small talk with others.

Twelve international graduate students, who speak English as an additional language and who are all in their first year at a mid-sized university in Western Canada, participated in an interpretive phenomenological study designed to examine how they navigate social interactions in their daily lives. Data were collected and analyzed in two phases. In the first phase, semi-structured interviews and journal entries were employed to collect information about their lived experiences when engaging in small talk. Data were analyzed to create scenarios of typical experiences. In the second phase, focus group discussions were conducted where participants were invited to comment and elaborate on the scenarios. Data from these three sources were analyzed iteratively through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and interpretive phenomenological analysis (Ajjawi & Higgs, 2007).

A key finding reveals that when participants encountered situations they perceived as exclusionary or discriminatory, they often felt unprepared or uncertain about how to respond. Some students lacked prior knowledge or experience to identify these moments clearly. Others struggled to articulate the nature of their discomfort due to limited linguistic or cultural resources. Still others, after recognizing the problematic nature of certain encounters, chose to minimize or rationalize the behavior of others, often in an effort to avoid conflict or support their long-term goal of settling in Canada.

These findings provide important implications for student support services. Institutions can play a more active role by creating spaces where students can share their experiences and feel genuinely heard, helping students define and make sense of difficult or ambiguous encounters, and equipping them with practical strategies to manage the emotional and relational challenges that can arise from such experiences. By centering international students voices and drawing on a co-cultural framework, this study offers actionable recommendations for supporting international students and fostering more inclusive campus environments.

Author

• Hui Shelley Xu, University of Regina