1st Edition
Research with International Students Critical Conceptual and Methodological Considerations
This must-read book combines carefully selected contributions to form a collective scholarly critique of existing research with international students, focusing on key critical and conceptual considerations for research where international students are participants or co-researchers. It pushes forward new agendas for the future of research with international students in global contexts, posing new sets of problems, provocations, and possibilities.
Bringing together a range of interdisciplinary scholars, this book explores the many facets of research, which centres international students and their experiences. Each chapter concludes with practical reflection questions, suggestions for researchers, and examples in existing research to support research designs and aid in developing high-quality, critical research on this topic.
Bringing fresh perspectives to the topic of research with international students, the book focuses on:
- Outlining current problems with existing research, including the ways that international students may be stereotyped, homogenised, Othered, or framed through deficit and colonial narratives
- (Re)-conceptualising key ideas that underpin research which are currently taken for granted
- Developing reflection points and practical guidance for new research designs which centre criticality and ethics
- Outlining ways that discourses and narratives about international students can be made more complex, particularly in reflection of their intersectional identities
This key text is essential reading for researchers at all career stages to reflect on issues of power, inequality, and ethics, whilst developing understandings about critical choices in research design, analysis, and the presentation of findings.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Section 1: How is current research positioned? 1. Working towards inclusive definitions of international students: Reflecting, refiguring, reconceptualising as international students and researchers Summer Bennett, Asuka Ichikawa, Yuqi Lin, Meena Pannirselvam and Thornchanok Uerpairojkit 2. Mapping the subfield of existing research with international students Jenna Mittelmeier, Sylvie Lomer, Heather Cockayne and Rui He Section 2: What inhibits critical research? 3. Unpacking the devaluation of international students and moving towards the humanisation of international students’ experiences Ly Thi Tran and Trang Hoang 4. Stereotypes of international students: Reflecting on our scholarly responsibilities through conceptual framings Tang T. Heng and Nannan Lu 5. Causes, mechanisms and consequences of Othering international students in higher education Yang Liu and Yizhu Qian 6. Coloniality of power and research with international students Hyacinth Udah 7. Deficit narratives in research on international students Sylvie Lomer, Sophia Hayat Taha, and Aneta Hayes Section 3: How can understandings of international students be made more complex? 8. Developing complex narratives about international students Josef Ploner 9. Calling race into research with international students: Confronting omissions Shannon Hutcheson 10. Intersectional issues in research with disabled international students Armineh Soorenian 11. Breaking binaries, engendering multiplicity: Decolonizing and queering research with international students Hoa N. Nguyen, Ashmi Desai, Ashish Agrawal, and Kneo Mokgopa 12. Bringing gender into research with international students Siqi Zhang and Jenna Mittelmeier 13. From privilege to differentiation: International students’ class reworkings Ana Luisa Muñoz-García and Teya Yu Section 4: What concepts are assumed? 14. Conceptualising to transcend: Glocal imaginaries and international studentsKalyani Unkule 15. Conceputalising ‘mobilities’ in research with international students Jihyun Lee and Johanna Waters 16. Re-conceptualising multiple and multi-dimensional transitions of international students and significant others Divya Jindal-Snape 17. International students and language: From individual ‘deficiency’ to instrument of oppression Vijay A. Ramjattan 18. Seeing international students: Challenging the culture trap Kumari Beck 19. Revisiting the conceptualisation of intercultural relationships in research with international students Kazuhiro Kudo Section 5: How can research be designed better? 20. Reflecting on international students and researcher positionality Hanne K. Adriansen and Vera Spangler 21. A decolonial praxis for research with international students Bukola Oyinloye and Bowen Zhang 22. It’s only fiction until it exists: Co-designing research with international students Mollie Dollinger, Samridhi Gupta, and Thuy-Anh Nguyen 23. Reflecting on international students’ voices and experiences in qualitative data: A narrative approach Cosmin Nada 24. Conducting critical quantitative research with international students Keanen McKinley 25. Linguistic diversity in research with and by international students: Considerations for research design and practice Richard Fay, Jane Andrews, Zhuomin Huang, and Ross White 26. Re-centring constructions of international students in writing: The ‘empire writes back’ Catherine Montgomery
Biography
Jenna Mittelmeier is Senior Lecturer in International Education at the University of Manchester, UK.
Sylvie Lomer is Senior Lecturer in Education Policy and Practice at the University of Manchester, UK.
Kalyani Unkule is Associate Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, India and Visiting Professor with the Center for the Study of Global Change at Indiana University, USA, ISDE Law School, Spain and Stockholm University Faculty of Law, Sweden.
‘Research with International Students: Critical Conceptual and Methodological Considerations is an essential text for anyone researching or teaching in the area of international education. This edited volume invites readers to take a reflexive, intersectional, power-conscious, and complexity-focused approach to research with international students. This approach challenges paternalistic research engagements and one-dimensional representations, and positions international students as knowledge producers. The authors go beyond simply critiquing the inequities that characterize international student experiences in order to grapple with the many epistemological, theoretical, and methodological challenges and possibilities involved in tracing the multiple systems, forces, and hierarchies that shape and are shaped by these experiences.’
Sharon Stein, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia‘As a researcher currently examining the "Integration of international students into the entrepreneurial ecosystems within higher education" and situated between the realms of a former international student during my teens and returning as an international student as an adult, reading these chapters was personal. I say this because they allowed me to reflect on the path my personal experiences have led me. In addition, the "suggestions for researchers "and "reflection questions" were delightful and necessary additions.
The chapters were genuinely insightful, thought-provoking, and challenged the positionality of international students within research. I love that the writers call for us to move towards creating a humanized and equitable experience for international students, which is something inherently missing within the fabric of higher education. The book has also allowed me to think critically about what "true integration" of international students means as it relates to truly understanding and acknowledging our nuanced experiences, cultures, sexuality, race, and beings.’
Toritse Ikomi, International Master's Student, Erasmus Mundus Masters in Research and Innovation in Higher Education Programme‘Research with International Students addresses an important but not yet fully researched contribution to the field of internationalization of higher education. The chapters in the book provide a critical and diverse overview of the study of international students and introduce the subfield of research with international students in a comprehensive and innovative way to the broader field of internationalization of higher education.’
Hans de Wit, Distinguished Fellow and Professor Emeritus, Boston College Center for International Higher Education‘The book brings together a collection of essays based on the premise that a great deal of current research on international students fails to recognize the diversity, contingency and complexity of their experiences and aspirations --as well as the ways in which the project of internationalization is transforming the character of higher education. Collectively, these essays point to the need for research that aims to develop a more critical understanding of internationalization by utilizing theoretical and political resources from the emerging decolonial, intersectional, and radical strands in educational studies.’
Fazal Rizvi, Emeritus Professor, The University of Melbourne and The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign‘These short sharp stimulating essays open multiple doorways into student mobility and its subjectivities. The determined focus on research with (rather than about) international students changes the politics of the field.’
Simon Marginson, Professor of Higher Education, University of Oxford
