Constructing International Students in Canada: A Media Analysis

Background and Purpose:

Canada has been proactive in promoting Canadian education globally, and the international education field has become one of top export commodities in Canada. Recently the federal government announced a national plan to double the number of international students by 2020. We wonder how this policy change is circulated to the public and in turn how the public responds to this change. In particular, we are interested in how the media plays a vital role in generating, circulating, and maintaining public discourses about international students. Most newspapers include comment sections or public forums where the public can share their voices or opinions. Thus we critically examine both the main articles and comments on international students.

Methods:

In order to systemically retrieve the data, the inclusion criteria consists of (1) news coverages (e.g., articles, editorials, or columns) and their comment sections; (2) published by Canadian news media; (3) written in English; and (4) from 2010-2016, using search terms (a) international or foreign students; (b) education or higher education; and (c) government or Canada. We used a 2-level search procedure: the first level search using Google and the second level search using 6 newspapers printed in English out of the Top 10 newspapers in Canada. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA: Gee, 2005) as the analytic framework, we deployed some of CDA constructs such as, Identities, Significance, Politics, and Intertextuality to analyze how international students are constructed in the Canadian media.     

Findings:

We had a final selection of 32 articles or editorials and their comments from Toronto Star (10 articles), Vancouver Sun (9), Windsor Star (8), Province (3), Montreal Gazette (1), and Calgary Herald (1), respectively. The analysis of the articles reveal that the governmental agenda of the international education as ‘the revenue generation and national economic prosperity’ is further reified in the media. Another discourse that emerged from the articles included some critique of the government treating the public education as the commodity. However, they also revealed that, while advocating for international students, another discourse emerged, constructing their identity as ‘being needy and inferior’, requiring and demanding ‘our resources’, which became ‘the burden for the nation’. Next, the analysis of the comments further revealed heightened conflicts around the increase of international students as ‘threats to Canadians’ limiting the citizen’s access to a quality of education and job; and in even worse cases, as ‘villains, with moral deficits’ by cheating ‘benevolent Canadian education systems’. By producing and circulating these discourses in the public space through the media, these discourses may impact the public opinions that further reify these gazes on international students.

Conclusion and Implications:

Social workers, as consumers of media, are not immune to the influence of these public discourses. Social workers, should critically reflect on our view and approach in addressing international students’ struggles. The findings of this paper thus guide us to question and critically reflect on how international students are constructed in the host country and how social workers’ approach to this population should be re-considered.