CALL FOR PAPERS

International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives

Special Issue: International Education, Educational rights, and Pedagogy

With increased globalisation, travel and mobility, international student education has become an important part of tertiary education around the world. In the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom in particular, large numbers of international students are crucial to the education sector, bringing in knowledge, skills, and motivation to succeed. Numerous researchers have noted the increasing marketisation and commodification of international education over the past several decades (Huang, Raimo, & Humfrey, 2016; Woodall, Hiller, & Resnick, 2014; Ek et al., 2013). Concurrently, the benefits of international student education have been documented as enabling knowledge exchange between local and international students, promoting cultural diversity and cross-cultural connections between countries and cultures, facilitating opportunities for international collaborations and contributing to teaching and learning in academic institutions (Leask, 2009; Sawir, 2013; Trice, 2013).

But what do these benefits of international student education mean in the current unstable, changing and unpredictable geopolitical contexts? As Baden Offord tellingly suggests: “The changing landscape of culture and society across the world is so rapid and so complex that the need to clarify what is happening is imperative and urgent” (2013:7). How can we critically evaluate and contextualise international student education in relation to ideologies of domination, changing geopolitical landscapes and conflicts, concerns regarding international student safety and welfare, and at the same time implement culturally sensitive and competent pedagogies? How do we ensure that international students are valued and treated justly, rather than viewed as customers or employed as markers of institutional diversity?

The discussions on international students’ rights to an equitable education and pedagogy is premised by concerns for accountable, culturally competent and engaged teaching responding to the changing conditions of a globalised and unstable world. In this context, universities inhabit contradictory spaces in which they negotiate educational projects, neoliberal political changes, and increasing governmental surveillance of international students and staff. For those teaching and supporting international students in Western countries, the complexities of these issues are becoming more and more apparent. These complexities have been noted by numerous scholars, educators and activists such as Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Sara Ahmed, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Akasha Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, Barbara Smith, Jasbir Puar, Alexis Pauline Gumbs and many others. Indeed, in their recent collection, Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira conceptualise the US academy as an “imperial university” (2014:6) implicated in ideologies of domination and unequal social structures, and they provide a range of transformative critiques from diverse scholars, educators and activists “as a project of solidarity” (2014:8). In another important collection, the authors provide a “framework for understanding the contradictory culture of academia” (Harris and González 2012:1) and the reproduction of social inequalities and privileges.

International education in Western countries does not exist in isolation from hierarchical social and economic structures, but remains implicated in processes of commodification, systems of privilege and oppression, and the ongoing effects of colonialism and imperialism. Within this context, we explicitly link the multifaceted concept of educational rights to international student education and pedagogy to explore issues related to cultural diversity, safety, vulnerability, welfare, peaceful co-existence in a changing global environment, and facilitating social transformation. Our understanding of educational rights is led by Offord’s emphasis on a “non-colonising ethics of engagement” which takes into account “the critical link between human rights, colonialism and culture” (2006:16-17). Acknowledging the legacies of colonialism and risks of conceptualising and essentialising educational rights as inherently Western, we aim to explore educational rights in the context of human rights as “complex, and rooted in survival, relationship and co-existence” (Offord, 2006:16). Taking these complexities and challenges as a starting point for continuing dialogue, the intersections between educational rights, international student education and pedagogy represent areas to be explored and critically evaluated.

The aim of this Special Issue is to facilitate further discussions on inclusive, culturally competent and accountable teaching in an unstable and frequently vexed geopolitical space. We believe that sharing approaches to teaching international students with respect to cultural diversity, equality, and cross-cultural applicability of concepts, methodologies and social issues, can and should be explored.

The Special Issue invites submissions on the following streams (the list is not exclusive):

- teaching human rights in the West (colonialism, complicity and cross-cultural applicability)

- educational rights and LGBTQIA* international students

- trauma-informed teaching and international student welfare: promoting resilience

- refugee rights, undocumented students, community engagement and international education

- international student rights, engaged teaching and activism

- international student education, migration and cultural exchange

- importance of culturally competent pedagogies in teacher training and curriculum development

- international student education and political changes (Brexit; US election outcomes; immigration policy changes in Western countries; government surveillance; movements led by migrants, Indigenous Peoples and undocumented persons)

- international education, commodification and pedagogy: neoliberal changes in higher education

- decolonising methodologies (within and despite of narratives and structures of Western imperialism)

Submission guidelines

Please send 300-word abstracts and a 100-word biography including your contact and affiliation details to all three guest editors by 1st of March 2017:

Maja Milatovic (maja.milatovic@anucollege.edu.au)

Lena Wånggren (lena.wanggren@ed.ac.uk)

Stephanie Spoto (sspoto@csumb.edu)

Notifications of acceptance will be sent to authors by mid-March 2017. Accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full papers (5000-6000 words) due 1st of August 2017.

The journal style guidelines, peer review policies and other relevant information can be viewed here: http://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/IEJ/about

References

Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (2014). Introduction: The Imperial University: Race, War and the Nation-State. In P. Chatterjee and S. Maira (Eds.), The Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent (pp. 1-53). Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

Ek, A., Ideland, M., Jönsson, S., & Malmberg, C. (2013). The tension between marketisation and academisation in higher education. Studies In Higher Education 38(9), 1305-1318.

Harris, A. P., & González, C. G. (2012). Introduction. In G. Gutiérrez y Muhs, Y. Flores Niemann, C. G. González, & A. P. Harris (Eds.), Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (pp. 1-17). Logan: Utah State University Press.

Huang, I. Y., Raimo, V., & Humfrey, C. (2016). Power and control: managing agents for international student recruitment in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 41(8), 1333–1354.

Leask, B. (2009). Using Formal and Informal Curricula to Improve Interactions Between Home and International Students. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13(2), 205-221.

Offord, B. (2013). Gender, Sexuality and Cosmopolitanism in Multicultural Australia: A Case Study. GEMC Journal, 8, 6-21.

Offord, B. (2006). Activating Human Rights through Questions of Value and Activism. In B. Offord & E. Porter (Eds.), Activating Human Rights (pp. 13-29). Bern and New York: Peter Lang.

Sawir, E. (2013). Internationalisation of higher education curriculum: the contribution of international students. Globalisation, Societies and Education 11(3), 359-378.

Trice, A. G. (2003). Faculty Perceptions of Graduate International Students: The Benefits and Challenges. Journal of Studies in International Education, 7(4), 379-403.

Woodall, T., Hiller, A., & Resnick, S. (2014). Making Sense of Higher Education: Students as Consumers and the Value of the University Experience. Studies in Higher Education 39(1), 48-67.