In this article, we, a Canadian team of doctoral researchers, reflected on our journey during an International Doctoral Research Seminar held in Beijing in 2015. As five doctoral students and two academics, we met with our doctoral colleagues from academic institutions in Brisbane (Australia) and Beijing (China). Although we did not discuss or negotiate which language we would be using in China, we were confronted with our assumption that English would be used, and that some the participants had a lower level of English competency than expected. It was apparent that this assumption of English language use privileged some (i.e., Canadian and Australian teams) while disadvantaging others (i.e., Chinese team). This confrontation brought up questions and concerns about equity in participation. As a result, this article chronicles the Canadian team reflecting on the International Doctoral Research Seminar including our privilege of using English, and coming to the position of wanting to create a more inclusive space for all participants to engage equitably in this international collaboration. As such, our reflections in this article focused on the domination of English as a lingua franca in academic spaces, in addition to how we decided to facilitate a transcultural space for all participants to be included.

As the world becomes more globally interconnected, international partnerships, including those within higher education, have increased. In an exemplar of these international partnerships from an academic standpoint, selected doctoral students and faculty from Australian, Chinese, and Canadian universities participated in an International Doctoral Research Seminar held in China in December 2015. The objective of this seminar was to have academic debate regarding educational reform. A critical by-product of this seminar was the meaning made by the participants from this experience. This paper reviews the critical polyethnographic reflections of the Canadian participants for three salient and influential topics including the role of culture, power dynamics, and organizational systems, all in relation to this international academic partnership experience. These reflections have ramifications for future programs specifically for enhancing the international development of doctoral students under the broader umbrella of international academic partnerships.

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