Local Mandate, Global Market: How Canadian Colleges Discuss International Students

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although the number of international students in Canadian colleges has been increasing rapidly, colleges’ internationalization activities have received less attention than those of universities. This article examined how Canadian colleges discuss international students in their official internationalization strategy documents. Conducting critical content analysis of the internationalization strategies of 11 colleges from five provinces in Canada, we found that internationalization strategies focus on four major themes: recruitment, student services, intercultural awareness and post-graduation transitions. We drew on concepts from both resource dependency theory and neo-institutional theory to explain the combination of both revenue generation and commitments to diversity as key themes in the documents. Ultimately, we argue that colleges justify their focus on international student recruitment by framing international students as promoting the development of intercultural awareness and global competences of domestic students, which are framed as increasingly necessary for their labor market success. Meanwhile, the aspirations and goals of international students themselves seem to be an after-thought. We conclude with a call to center the goals of international students as a starting point for creating more responsive institutions.