Resisting neocolonial harm and localising global standards at international branch campuses: a comparative study of two Canadian cases

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of the 21st century, international branch campuses have experienced significant growth worldwide, and most of them are established in the Global South by the Global North, reproducing Western hegemony through education. In this context, we conducted a comparative study to analyse the convergence and divergence of the neocolonial practices at Shanghai Vancouver Film School and Algonquin College-Kuwait, two international branch campuses established by Canadian post-secondary institutions. The results demonstrate the two Canadian international branch campuses modernise and internationalise the post-secondary education system in their importing countries by resisting neocolonial harm and localising global standards. When mimicking their home institutions’ curriculum, they both exercise agency, albeit to different degrees, by resisting Western liberal ideologies and teaching contents irrelevant to the local context, attempting to create a third space for students to engage with multiple perspectives and knowledge systems.

KEYWORDS:

• International branch campuses
• neocolonialism
• mimicry
• resistance
• Canada

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Shanghai Vancouver Film School and Algonquin College-Kuwait for providing assistance in participant recruitment and thank all interviewees for contributing their time and effort to participating in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a research project (Grant No. 2022IICEZS13) funded by the Institute of International and Comparative Education at Beijing Normal University, which a key humanities and social sciences research institute approved by the Ministry of Education of China.