‘Integration is not a one-way process’: students negotiating meanings of integration and internationalization at home (IaH) in Finnish higher education

Reconceptualising how to internationalise-at-home: Using dialogue to stimulate intercultural capacity within university students.

“…Despite, skills being seen as foundational for IC to develop over time, gaining guidance and opportunities to practice is key, and this includes learning how to negotiate uncomfortable feelings that come up when engaging with unfamiliar or different others (Deardorff & Jones, 2012). As such, this finding supports a range of prevailing literature calling for more intentionally designed opportunities and initiatives to promote domestic and international student interaction in places of learning (Arkoudis et al, 2013;Fozdar & Volet, 2016;Leask & Carroll, 2011;Mendoza et al, 2023).…”

“…Findings confirmed that student engagement and participation in the academic context is highly influenced by and socio-emotional factors when interacting with others, and that transition to a new context requires all students to undergo a process of enculturation (Einfalt, 2020), whether being a domestic or international student. As it is important for universities to intentionally stimulate connection through intercultural conversations in places of learning (Cook-Sather et al, 2021;Mendoza et al, 2023). This brings us back to the ongoing problem that the presence of a diverse student cohort studying together on Australian campuses is no guarantee that intercultural learning or understandings will develop in these students (Arkoudis et al, 2013) or that students will benefit from this diversity either virtually or in the physical classroom.…”

“…One assumption often made within Australian universities is that international and domestic students will automatically interact with and learn from each other if they study together. However, to the contrary, evidence to date suggests a distinct lack of interaction between international and domestic students (Blackmore et al, 2022;Mendoza et al, 2023), highlighting a concerning lack of shared intercultural understanding between students on Australian campuses (Arkoudis et al, 2013;Gregersen-Hermans, 2017;Willoughby-Knox, & Yates, 2021). Home students are often found to resist intercultural group work, and generally to avoid contact with their international peers, and this has raised concerns about unequal access to transformative experiences for students to gain an internationalised education, let alone develop intercultural capacity (Harrison, 2015).…”