Affinity spaces and the situatedness of intercultural relations between international and domestic students in two Australian schools

ABSTRACT

This paper interrogates international and domestic peer relations in two Australian schools and how they are shaped by structural, cultural and discursive dimensions of schooling. In particular, it analyses intercultural relations between domestic and international students in the context of policies promoting “internationalisation-at-home”. We argue that how international students are positioned within specific school contexts impacts their sense of inclusion in everyday social and pedagogical relations and informs their relationships with domestic students, whether viewed as a stranger or potentially as a friend raising questions as to who is responsible for intercultural relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy/politics
• inclusion/exclusion
• immigrants/migrants
• secondary education
• international students
• intercultural understanding

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Non-government schools are funded by the federal government in addition to fees.

2 The names of all schools and students are pseudonyms, selected by the student (and often of English origin). Each shares the initial letter of their school pseudonym.

3 The Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) assigns a value for each Australian school based on parents’ occupation and education, schools’ geographical locations, and proportion of Indigenous students.

4 The Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD) is calculated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and depicts economic and social conditions of people and households within a postcode

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council [grant number DP160103181].