EDI Mini-Fest  

Session Outline:

Over the course of a few months in 2023, a focus group was set up and facilitated for international students on the BSc and MSc social work degree programmes. The formation of the group arose from a recognition that international students have diverse and unique experiences in higher education, but that there are few spaces for these experiences to be shared and explored. The group itself was concerned with the context of higher education for international students and the means through which students can participate, engage and ultimately have their experiences truly heard.

The purpose of the focus group was to facilitate such exploration in order to co-create resources, materials and mechanisms of support for other international students; thereby giving meaning to the concept of student engagement. In this sense the focus group adopted a phenomenographic and narrative approach, positioned within a transformative paradigm (Held, 2019). The focus group prompted reflection on concepts of student engagement, student voice and belonging; themes which lend themselves to approaches that are student-centred and underpinned by humanistic principles. 

The views, opinions and experiences shared within the focus group have held a mirror to the complex, messy and unresolved landscape of higher education for international students; a landscape which is dominated by neoliberal frameworks that serve to denigrate the ontological narratives integral to rich, diverse and dynamic sites of knowledge construction. I argue for a shift in approach; one which values ontological experience first and foremost, which makes space for it through altered power dynamics, reciprocal relationships, student-centredness and truly democratic teaching and learning spaces. Through this, we can return to an understanding of education as a ‘practice of freedom’, ‘a fundamentally social, transformative, transgressive space that develops people and their futures’ (Mittelmeier and Lomer, 2021). 

Session Aims:

Principally, to encourage academic proactivity in seeking the views, opinions and experiences of international students and also in ensuring that these are given the recognition, respect and validation that they deserve. This session aims to convey the importance of understanding the international student experience as being diverse and certainly not homogenous, but an experience that is nonetheless unique. This session seeks to highlight how essential it is to consider international students' ontological experience first and foremost.