Towards a Critical Study of the Inequitable Treatment Experienced by “International Students from Asia” and the Roadblocks Encountered within Canadian Postsecondary Institutions Pour une étude critique des inégalités de traitement vécues par les « étudiant.e.s en provenance d’Asie » et des écueils des institutions d’enseignement supérieur canadiennes les accueillant

On EduCanada (2019), an official Government of Canada website which promotes Canadian postsecondary education to prospective international students, testimonials from international alumni of Canadian colleges and universities, coming from around the globe, all put forth the same message: Canada has transformed their lives. In the section “Stories of International Students in Canada,” a young Mexican woman reveals that “these two years in Canada remain to this day the most significant of … [her] career.” In fact, she goes on to say: “This experience enriched me beyond what I thought possible. Canada is a safe, multicultural place, where people are respected and cared for.” In the same vein, a manager of Indian origin emphasizes the strong draw of the country in terms of university studies: These “stories,” and many other similar ones found on the site send an unequivocal message about the pursuit of higher education in Canada: it is a decision that opens the way to assured professional success, Canada being an “optimal” choice in the competitive landscape of options for whomever might be contemplating studying abroad. The hegemonic narrative that underlies these promotional vignettes is reminiscent of the civilizing mission of the colonial project. At the centre of this narrative lies a relationship built on dependency, in which each participant plays a clear, unambiguous role: “Canada” dispenses in abundance, via the network of postsecondary institutions, the knowledge, resources, and skills that will guarantee success in the professional pursuits of “international students,” the fortunate beneficiaries of this partnership. Following in the footsteps of an emerging body of literature devoted to the journey of international students in Canada and other Global North countries, this issue joins in questioning the dominant narrative of the trajectory of postsecondary education in Canada, produced and propagated by the state, universities, colleges and, to a certain degree, by scientific research pertaining to the subject. Based on empirical findings drawn from various levels of analysis, it brings together qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to chronicle the contrasting experiences of international students from Asia to Canada, and, in doing so, this issue suggests taking some distance from an idealized and monolithic representation of this group. Articles by Varughese et al., Mandell et al., Magnan et al., and Tavares put into perspective the prevailing institutional approach to welcoming, integrating, and supporting international students. This approach, as the authors explain, is primarily rooted in a neoliberal conception of the challenges arising out of migration and study, as well as of the remedies. Deficit-thinking reduces the barriers to linguistic, cultural, and intellectual “deficits” these students encounter. They must then make up for them through greater work and determination, and by having recourse to the resources placed at their disposal (Shields et al., 2005). Counter to this approach, these articles expose the absence, or lack of institutional processes geared to respond to the needs of international students as individuals of diverse class, gender, and race. We will return later to this point. Some articles in this issue (see Varughese et al., Buckner et al., Chatterjee et al., and Mandell et al.) run against the hegemonic narrative discussed earlier by studying the impact of systemic constraints that international students must face upon their arrival to the country. The exorbitant and ever-rising costs associated with the pursuit of their studies in Canada are an essential component of any analysis which seeks to understand these many experiences and journeys. The costs are in large part due to the very high tuition fees levied on international students by Canadian universities, a reality quite apart from that of their domestic peers who have the benefit of …