Abstract
Social isolation has been a central focus within international student research, especially with regard to international/host national relations. While a worthy area of study, we argue that the sheer volume of such research stems from the fact that universities’ recruitment of foreign students is often justified by the claim that a more international campus will engender cross-cultural skills. The main argument of this paper is that, from this perspective, the “point” of such sojourns is seen as social, and any lack of interaction becomes problematic. This is an intellectually respectable position, but it is problematic that it has come to dominate the field to such a degree that the students’ own experiences and goals are rarely heard. This paper calls for a de-muting of international students in research, so that more research is oriented by their stated priorities. While there has been a shift in this regard around the turn of the millennium, presumptions as to the purpose of educational sojourns remain and continue to colour research.
Highlights
The increased global mobility of people, objects, concepts and images has made for a gradually diversifying student body
A substantial proportion of international student research is devoted to social isolation, the lack of interaction with host national students (Bochner et al 1977; Ward and Kennedy 1993; Sam 2000; Pritchard and Skinner 2002; Baba and Megumi 2014; Arthur 2017)
The result of this is that a large part of the extant international student research centres on the lack of cross-cultural interaction in their sojourns
Summary
The increased global mobility of people, objects, concepts and images has made for a gradually diversifying student body. Fulbright 1976; Laubscher 1994) This assumption seems to have been taken up by a large proportion of the people writing on international students Westwood and Barker 1990; Pritchard and Skinner 2002; Campbell 2012; Kimmel and Volet 2012), to the extent that the students’ own motivations and aspirations are rarely heard The result of this is that a large part of the extant international student research centres on the lack of cross-cultural interaction in their sojourns. While the deficit model is still a prevalent perspective, these more recent studies represent an encouraging development where the types of perspectives used are becoming more diverse, more complex, and that the viewpoints of the students themselves are being given more emphasis
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