“They Are Not Mixing With Others”: Finnish Lecturers’ Perspectives on International Students’ (Mis-)Encounters in Higher Education

Abstract

Purpose:Meeting “others,” especially so-called “local” students, is usually seen as a sign of success for intercultural learning and integration in research on study abroad and internationalization of higher education. Previous studies have focused on how international students themselves describe their (mis-)encounters. In this article, the authors consider lecturers’ voices about this phenomenon. Lecturers have an influence on the students’ experiences since they spend a lot of time together in and outside class.Design/Approach/Methods:Using a thematic analysis and social network analysis of interview data with lecturers, and a critical perspective toward the dichotomy of “local” versus “international” students, a university in Finland, a popular destination thanks to its positive image in global education, serves as a case study.Findings:The article identifies privileges, limits, and (missed) opportunities of encounters, as shared by the lecturers in focus group discussions. Furthermore, the lecturers created hierarchies in the way they described the encounters between different kinds of students. Some signs of pluralizing both local and international students were also found in some lecturers’ discourses.Originality/Value:The article ends with recommendations for institutions regarding the lecturers’ problematic role of gatekeepers in student encounters and the limiting categories used in institutions of higher education to refer to students.