Internationalising students: reassessing diasporic and local student difference

Abstract

Universities' responses to globalisation include recruiting more students from around the world. This student diaspora has diversified student demographics and has necessitated change. Universities, considering their responses to difference, often see international students as requiring extra attention, if not remediation, of supposed ‘deficits’. Stereotypes of them as ‘problems’ persist. At the same time, more students from culturally diverse local communities are enrolling. In this context, findings are presented here from an Australian study of the course experiences of international and local Muslim students. Significant inter‐group differences suggest that students from local communities may require more attention than western universities, preoccupied with diasporic students' characteristics and needs, have been prepared to give them. Findings also support the argument that, rather than treating difference as a deficit, universities could do more to ‘internationalise’ all their students in educating them for a globally connected and culturally diverse world.

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by a University of Sydney research grant. I am grateful for the support I have received from Lici Inge, Elizabeth Proude and Ben Spiers in the Institute for Teaching and Learning, and from all the Muslim students and staff participating in the study.

Notes

* Institute for Teaching and Learning, Carslaw Building F07, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Email: [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christine Asmar *

* Institute for Teaching and Learning, Carslaw Building F07, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Email: [email protected]