Building Bridges to Better Bonds?: Differential On-Campus Participation between International and Domestic Students

Abstract

Helping international students create meaningful on-campus connections is a major part of higher education’s internationalization efforts. By focusing on the efforts made by both international and domestic students to develop a sense of belonging through on-campus organizations like clubs and sports, we have the opportunity to consider their active creation of bridging and bonding capital. Through structured interviews with 150 international Asian and domestic White and Asian students enrolled at one of the largest universities in Canada, this research demonstrates that ethnicity-based on-campus organizations play a key role in helping international students build bonding capital on campus. However, findings from this research also demonstrate that international and domestic student groups do not take part in the same on-campus organizations. Differences in participation and discriminatory attitudes held by domestic White students have the potential to inhibit bridging capital, limiting integration between student groups

Challenges of South Asian and Chinese International Students: Becoming Anchored in Networks of Support

“…Those who attended campus diversity events, orientation, and other events found these activities to be mostly populated with other international students (CBIE, 2015, p. 6;Jiang & Altinyelken, 2022). In their study of a western Canadian university, Malette and Ismailzai (2020) found that Asian international students, who were less likely to take part in sports, fraternities and sororities, and drinking, would participate in ethnicity-focused clubs, which provided them opportunities to form friendships, receive information and emotional support, celebrate holidays and traditions, and feel comfortable and accepted on campus, thus lessening their social isolation and making them feel socially and culturally included (p. 76). The social support internationals students receive from establishing social networks with other students and from participating in campus events contributes to their psychological well-being and positively influences their sociocultural adaptation (Zhou et al, 2008;Zhou & Zhang, 2014).…”

“…Students rely on their new multinational and host-national friends for information and support. Many actively seek to expand different types of friendships by attending orientations, social and cultural events, joining professional clubs, and engaging with others during classes (CBIE, 2015;Couton & Gaudet, 2008;Malette & Ismailzai, 2020;Sherry et al, 2010). Nemera (Pakistani, 18, arrived 2019) found that "there's so many opportunities to get involved" and make friends by joining the Pakistani Student Association (PSA) on campus.…”

“…Nemera (Pakistani, 18, arrived 2019) found that "there's so many opportunities to get involved" and make friends by joining the Pakistani Student Association (PSA) on campus. However, even when they join cultural or ethnicity-based clubs, students tend to make few host-national friends (Malette & Ismailzai, 2020).…”

“A question of self-interest”: A brief history of 50 years of international student policy in Canada

“…The CJHE shows a marked change around 2014, with a more critical turn emerging in discussions of internationalization. There were still articles examining how to better support international students (e.g., Cui et al, 2017;Giamos et al, 2017;Green et al, 2018;Malette & Ismailzai, 2020;Montsion, 2018;Robertson et al, 2015), but even these took an increasingly critical turn. For example, a number of articles examined the increased vulnerability of international students to personal financial challenges, including food insecurity (Bottorff et al, 2020;Calder et al, 2016;Frank, 2018;Maynard et al, 2018).…”

Violence Never Ending:case Studi at External Student Organizations in Makassar-Indonesia

“…Students learn a variety of things outside the classroom through student organizations, including values and camaraderie among the group's members (Borges et al, 2017;Lancaster & Xu, 2017), involvement in student organizations allow for greater interpersonal engagement, networking, and socialization for students (Fazzlurrahman et al, 2018). Malette & Ismailzai (Malette & Ismailzai, 2020). Student organizations have varying effects on academic performance, depending on the type of organization as well as the race and gender of the members (Baker, 2008), as the primary goal of racial/ethnic student organizations is to offer support for students of colour so they can be able to adapt in the campus environment and learn about democracy in the community environment (Bowman et al, 2015).…”