Date of Award
2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
Education
Supervisor
Dr. Goli Rezai-Rashti
Abstract
Internationalization, as a response to globalization, is one of the key drivers and shapers of the fundamental changes transforming the world of higher education. There is a need to understand internationalization within higher education from the vantage point of the domestic and international students who are currently being educated because their experiences testify to the provision of quality education. Using a Case Study approach this research explores ways that the internationalization of higher education impacts students’ intercultural relations, identities, intercultural sensitivity, critical understandings, and notions of citizenship. A postcolonial perspective is used to explore how students perceive the influences of globalization. Contemporary ideological constructions of globalization are seen in historical and cultural contexts and not as naturalized and reified economic processes. Various themes were identified in international Chinese and domestic students’ accounts of their experiences of internationalization at a Canadian university including: education and marketization, academic pressure and performance, language, intercultural connections and barriers, and cultural hybridity. Results indicated that students responded to internationalization in complex and contradictory ways. The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) was used as a tool to demonstrate growth in students’ intercultural sensitivity. The intercultural experiences students discussed in interviews were difficult to compare with the inventory results. The IDI did not, in the space of one academic year, capture the finer nuances and changes in students’ intercultural growth and sensitivity. Students’ intercultural sensitivity, as indicated by the EDI scores, did not necessarily progress or improve with increased intercultural contact and in some cases, it decreased.
Recommended Citation
Weber, Linda, "INTERNATIONAL CHINESE AND CANADIAN STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES OF INTERNATIONALIZATION AT A CANADIAN UNIVERSITY" (2011). Digitized Theses. 3614.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/3614