Internationalization as Intermingling? A Qualitative Study of Chinese International Students’ Motivations and Experiences in an Australian University

Internationalization and the concomitant flow of cultural diversity often associated with it are highly prized by universities; many tertiary institutions claim internationalization of the campus, the curriculum, research, and the student body as a major goal, a key performance indicator. However, in the current climate of global international education, overseas student integration and their adjustment difficulties into the life of the host country are often posited as personal failures, and international education scholarship focuses heavily on the failure of international students to integrate into host societies. We question the assumptions underpinning the tendency of universities to link internationalization to the development of interculturality across the campus through bringing together students from different national backgrounds. The belief is that students seek such interactions; internationalization could be achieved through such simplistic practices; this assumption needs empirical scrutiny. In this focused study, we report the motivations and experiences of 24 Chinese international students in an Australian university. A significant majority of the participants reported little interest in intercultural interactions with both host national students and other international students outside their own cultural groups. For those who have hopes of becoming some form of “global citizen,” the experiences of these Chinese students suggest that cross-cultural communication is not as successful as hoped in the spaces of encounters, including classrooms, university student accommodation, and social activities out of the classrooms. The voices of these students suggest the need for intervention in the realization of the internationalization vision held by most universities and a reframing of goals and practices to narrow the breach between lofty rhetoric and the practice of international education.