This is a conceptually oriented article which questions established notions concerning the framing of international students in Anglo-Western universities through a literature review. Focusing largely on students from Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHC), and resulting from concerns regarding their level of participation, the literature is considered to have overly represented students’ English language competence and cultures of origin as causal factors. The body of the article explores the strands of this complex debate, reviewing both the literature which argues and questions the importance of English language competence, and that which proposes, challenges, problematizes, and ultimately reaffirms the view that cultural background is the dominant factor. The article argues that the literature has emphasized international students themselves, what makes them different, rather than their participation: Despite the often best intentions to the contrary, it has played to a deficit discourse, and has not always offered helpful guidance to the practice community. The article argues that the theoretical perspective of sociocultural theory, and, in particular, activity theory, offers a theorized understanding of participation and its relationship to learning often lacking in the literature, and enables a holistic understanding of participation in educational contexts. Moreover, as a motivational theory of learning, activity theory helps put into perspective the importance of such factors as language competence and culture of origin.

The literature on international student participation in Anglo-Western universities is predicated on an assumption of underachievement. Reductive understandings prevail with English language competence and cultural background highlighted. Drawing from a case study of group work in a first-year module in a management course at an internationalizing university in the United Kingdom, this article explores students’ perceptions of the impact of English language competence on participation. The case study, which aimed at a holistic understanding, adopted an activity theoretical framework for modeling participation and for analyzing focus group data. Four educational objects were identified with the construct “object in view” employed in recognition of the plurality of the object. The in-depth analysis focused on the object. Although focus groups traversed a range of topics, English language competence was widely discussed. However, the analysis suggests that the extent English language was perceived as an issue was relative to the object in view.