Counting Family: Making the Family of International Students Visible in Higher Education Policy and Practice

Abstract

This article focuses on a significant group of postgraduate international students overlooked by institutions and policymakers, namely those with accompanying partners and children. The economic importance of international students to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America is highlighted. It is argued that an outdated construction of the international student as young and carefree contributes to the pattern of invisibility apparent in data collection systems and in the research literature. Drawing on the NAFSA formula, estimates are calculated for numbers of accompanying family members for five selected countries, and then immigration, education, and health policies pertaining to family members are examined Higher Education Policy (2016) 29, 184-198.

International Brazilian Students: Motivators, Barriers, and Facilitators in Higher Education

“…Another point of contrast between the literature and the current research, according to Doyle et al (2016), pertains to academic mobility, which appears in the literature as a student motivator because of the ease of movement. However, when analyzing the data collected, none of the participants mentioned this facility; it may be that the managers of HEIs, as well as of the government officials who aim to increase the presence and performance of the country in the academic field, should pay more attention to this phenomenon.…”

“…For Doyle et al (2016), a student’s ease of mobility or movement to study in other countries also ranks as a motivational factor. It is worth noting that promoting and incentivizing students’ transition to internationalization is important to gain visibility and for internationalization to be seen as an attractive option for students.…”

“I lost myself”

“…As individuals enter a new context, identity is transformed, built, and sustained through communication. Numerous identity and communication studies have considered the international student population (Liu et al, 2017;Tran, 2009;Wadsworth, 2008;Zimmermann, 1995); however, few studies include accompanying family members (De Verthelyi, 1995;Doyle et al, 2016;Elfeel & Bailey, 2018). Thus, the focus of this study is the inequality in the experiences of IGS and their spouses in their processes of identity transformation.…”

International Student Spouses and the English Language

“…While there is some research on international spouses, there has been scant focus by institutions and governmental agencies on collecting data and understanding this group, or on providing supportive services for them (Doyle, Loveridge, & Faamanatu-Eteuati, 2016). Indeed, international spouses are sometimes referred to as an invisible or forgotten population (Lei, Woodend, Nutter, Ryan, & Cairns, 2015;Teshome & Osei-Kofi, 2011).…”