Culturally Responsive Education: Reflections and Insights for Enhancing International Student Experience in Higher Education

Introduction And Background Literature

Many higher education institutions around the world have consistently sought opportunities to enhance their international presence by looking beyond their national and cultural borders and recruiting students from diverse national backgrounds. In Australia, about 400,000 international students are documented to have studied on student visas between 2008 and 2011 (Lawson, 2012). This trend has continued to grow and has only been interrupted by the current COVID-19 pandemic that oversaw the closure of international borders across the globe, including Australia (Hurley, 2020). The increased admission of international students has greatly changed population demographics in higher education institutions. Beyond the financial and economic benefits that international students bring to higher education providers and the host country, the number of international students that higher education providers enroll is one of the benchmarks considered in international university rankings. For instance, popular University ranking organisations such as Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) include international students as a metric in their rankings. In consequence, competition among higher education providers for international students has become more intense as many providers promise scholarship packages, world-class teaching and faculty, and positive student support culture in their recruitment advertisements (Adams, Leventhal & Connelly, 2012).

Within the highly competitive higher education environment, prospective international students are confronted with the difficulty of making important decisions regarding a destination country and higher education provider (Nafari, Arab & Ghaffari, 2017). While the projected international outlook of higher education providers could serve as a point of attraction to international students, several reasons account for why students choose to pursue international education. Phang (2013) found that students’ choice of study destinations was informed by a range of factors including quality of communication between applicants and universities; attractiveness of the destination including university reputation, safety of the destination, language spoken and openness to diverse cultures; and social factors including network with friends and family, former lecturers and student testimonials. Similar studies revealed that the most important push and pull factors in destination choices were opportunities for personal growth (including acquisition of new skills and knowledge, opportunity to learn a new language) and the image as well as the reputation of the university (Eder, Smith & Pitts, 2010). Particularly, opportunities for personal and professional growth were deemed as giving students a professional competitive advantage over their peers. These were interrelated with critical factors such as social acceptance and culture of the people and how that shapes interaction with professors and other university staff. Other latent factors such as visa conditions, security, and cost of education were either facilitators or barriers (Eder et al., 2010; Nicholls, 2018). For other students, funding opportunities through aid and scholarships and conditions of the home country compared to conditions abroad were important considerations in provider choice (Mpinganjira, 2009; Nafari et al., 2017). It is evident that international students do not only seek quality academic programs but also rich academic experience and cultural acceptance.