Exploring the intersection of transnationalism and critical race theory: a critical race analysis of international student experiences in the United States

Diversity without integration? Racialization and spaces of exclusion in international higher education

“…I echo scholars such as Fries-Britt, George Mwangi, and Peralta (2014) in arguing that the college experiences of foreign students of color should be included in the discussion of race and racism in the US. If international students' racial identity remains invisible in university data, policies on multiculturalism and racial/ ethnic diversity will keep leaving out this student group, perpetuating segregation between foreign students of color and domestic students (Diangelo 2006;Sato and Hodge 2009;Yao et al 2019).…”

US Higher Education Internationalization Through an Equity-Driven Lens

“…Scholars have begun, particularly within the twenty-first century, to move away from the disciplinary perspectives of social psychology and intercultural communication that have undergirded international education and take a values-neutral approach to internationalization in order to engage in frameworks that critique and interrogate internationalization (Vavrus and Pekol 2015 ). Scholars have used critical theory, postcolonial theory, decolonial theory, and critical race theory to empirically unpack colonial and racist university processes, governed by oppressive structures of power (e.g., Andreotti 2006 ; Blanco Ramírez 2014 ; George Mwangi et al 2018 ; Roshanravan 2012 ; Stein et al 2016 ; Vavrus and Pekol 2015 ; Yao et al 2019b ). For example, drawing from decolonial scholarship, Stein et al ( 2016 ) explained that most institutions of higher learning operate through a global dominant imaginary from which issues of racial hierarchies and economic inequalities in the field are maintained.…”

“…These reviews focused on international students’ adjustment to US HE, how their sojourn to the USA impacted their values, factors impacting their academic achievement, and peer group composition and engagement. One critique of these reviews is that international student research portrays this student population in narrow ways, and this critique is not dissimilar to critiques of research on international students’ experiences in contemporary times (e.g., Abdullah et al 2014 ; George Mwangi et al 2019 ; Hanassab 2006 ; Heng 2019 ; Lee 2014 ; Malcolm and Mendoza 2014 ; Yao et al 2019b ).…”

“…These goals have not been fully achieved; however, they create benchmarks for moving toward greater equity, which are often lacking in US HEIs’ global engagement strategies. In fact, while internationalization is increasingly a strategic priority within US HE, growing scholarship demonstrates that internationalization practices such as study abroad, international student recruitment, and cross-border partnerships can engender Western/US superiority and hegemony as well as inequality (George Mwangi 2017 ; Buckner and Stein 2019 ; Vavrus and Pekol 2015 ; Yao et al 2019b ). In this chapter, we argue that given the comprehensive integration of internationalization into US HE and the highly globalized society in which HE functions, equity cannot be achieved within the US HE context without a focus on internationalization.…”

“Can East Asian Students Think?”: Orientalism, Critical Thinking, and the Decolonial Project

“…e) Why do ethnic minorities have to endure racism and xenophobia on university campuses? In answering these questions, scholars have emphasised that Western academia is characterised by such an intensity of racism and white privilege that ethnic minorities routinely experience campuses as sites of interrogation, marginalisation and discrimination, which typically materialises as incessant microaggressions but can also take more aggressive and overt forms [14][15][16][17][18].…”