“Proving never ends” : foreign origin and its impact on international students’ wellbeing behind internationalization of higher education

Abstract

Many countries in the Global North have undergone reorientations to the knowledge economy to tackle rising economic and societal challenges. In recent decades, Finnish universities were mobilized to implement internationalization policies aimed at further integration and employment of foreign talents. However, the present political and societal tensions around immigrants combined with the pre-existing difficulties of their integration presumably pose a significant dilemma confronting the successful barrier-free realization of internationalization programs. Critical research publications increasingly point out at the vulnerable position of international students, yet there is still a lack of empirical evidence of how the inward-looking societal climate may affect internationalization phenomena and especially international students.

This qualitative case study analyses the internationalization policy and practice at the University of Oulu with embedded opinions of international students on their comprehensive wellbeing and perceptions associated with foreign origin. The data combines interviews with 13 international students and the recently released Strategy document of the University’s internationalization plans. The theoretical framework includes the rubrics to assess the comprehensive wellbeing of students and staff within higher education (Zhou & Parmanto, 2020) and the social cartography by Pashby and de Oliveira Andreotti (2016) to read the internationalization praxis. The findings provide the guidelines for a type of internationalization which embraces international students' voices, recommendations for the internationalization of the case university, as well as the areas of further research in that field. The application of pragmatism in this study enabled the positive practical changes resulting from the findings and is described in detail.