Beyond the Cultural Approach

Abstract

Chinese international students are vital to internationalization development in Canadian higher education, providing immediate and significant social and economic benefits to Canadian society. The existing scholarly studies have primarily adopted a cultural approach, with a focus on intercultural adaptation or related cross-cultural perspectives. This study goes beyond the cultural approach and examines how race, gender, and class intersect in producing social inequality among Chinese international students in Canada. Through the narratives of five students attending higher education institutions in British Columbia, the study reveals that Chinese international students have experienced discrimination in relation to developing friendship, integrating to the learning environment, and accessing supports and resources on campus based on the color of skin, their gender, and misperception of their class. The color line divides them into the “dominant white” and “people of color.” Color blindness negates their racial identities and ignores the ways in which these affect their learning experiences. The findings of this research call for an intersectional approach to examine international students and their lived experiences by addressing students’ multiple identities and differences to enrich their lived experience in Canada.

Introduction

In Canada, internationalization of higher education has become a central pillar in the quest for excellence in global educational competition. In 2014, the Canadian government launched its international education strategy, with a vision to “become the 21st century leader in international education in order to attract top talent and prepare our citizens for the global marketplace, thereby providing key building blocks for our future prosperity.” 1 Internationalization has also been promoted as a strategy to increase the number of international students in Canada and to promote educational and research collaborations internationally. As the sixth most popular destination in the world, Canada has been successful in recruiting international students enrolled in higher education institutions in the last decade or so, with a 92% increase from 184,170 in 2008 to 353,570 in 2015. 2 Among them, one third came from China. Chinese international students have played a vital role in the internationalization strategies of Canadian higher education by providing immediate and significant social and economic benefits in every region of the country and supporting the excellence and innovation of Canada’s education and cultural landscape. 3, 4 At the same time, they face many challenges. Hence, it is imperative to understand the experience of Chinese international students in Canada.

A review of an emerging body of literature on Chinese international students indicates that existing studies have primarily adopted a cultural approach with a focus on cultural shock and cultural difference, neglecting social inequalities related to race, class, and gender. 5, 6, 7 In this view, the role of universities is to facilitate better intercultural adaptations of international students in an unfamiliar academic environment. 8, 9, 10 To this end, a study was conducted recently to address the importance of intersections of race, gender, and class in shaping the experience of Chinese international students in Canada. The study goes beyond the cultural approach in examining how race, gender, and class intersect in producing social inequality among Chinese international students in Canada.

This article reports findings of the study organized into five parts. It starts with defining the internationalization of higher education in Canadian context, followed by an examination of its theoretical framework of intersectionality. The third part reports on data collection and methodology. Then the article discusses the findings of the study. Finally, it concludes with implications for future research.

Defining Internationalization in a Canadian Context

Internationalization of higher education endeavours to integrate the “international or intercultural dimension into the tripartite mission of teaching, research and service functions of higher education.” 11 As a multidimensional process, internationalization involves international student mobility, exchanges of faculty, international linkages and partnerships, international academic programs, and research collaborations. At the national/sector level, it focuses on the international dimension of higher education through policy, funding, programs, and regulatory frameworks, while at the institutional level, it illustrates the importance of transnational partnerships and collaborations across borders, such as branch campuses, curriculum design, and the teaching-learning process. 12 The existing literature indicates two major discourses on internationalization: a market-driven discourse motivated by cultivating and securing profitability and competitiveness in the global market, and an ethical approach that engages with human rights to build a more inclusive society for disadvantaged students. 13, 14 This definition underscores the significance of institutional and national/sector levels, recognizing the relationship between nations, cultures, and countries, 15 and “use[s] a bottom-up (institutional) approach and a top-down (national/sector) approach to examine the dynamic relationship between these two levels.” 16

Internationalization of higher education is now significant in Canada. 17 The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (aucc) survey reveals that Canadian universities are deeply committed to, with 95% of Canadian higher education institutions identifying it as a top planning priority. 18 This commitment is deeply embedded at senior administrative levels of most institutions and is being acted upon with increasing urgency. All Quebec institutions indicated that internationalization is one of their top five priorities and 70% of Ontario institutions responded similarly. Regional variations led to more efforts by some on placing internationalization as a strategic priority; however, 89% of survey respondents mentioned that the pace of internationalization on their campuses has accelerated (either greatly or somewhat) during the past three years. Besides, with respect to institutional strategies, more than 95% of universities reported that their strategic or long-term planning documents make (89%) or will make (7%) explicit internationalization plans. In terms of university activities, 54% of universities reported that they have an institutional strategy to cope with international research collaboration, with another 20% having one under development. While this question was not asked in 2006, it seems to be an area of significant expansion. An institutional policy or strategy to internationalize teaching, research, and services currently exists at 41% of universities, with another 40% having one under development.

With international students coming from 187 countries, global diversity is evident. Over 60% originated from China, India, France, South Korea, and the us. Almost 47% of international students, a total of 164,495, pursuing studies in Canada came from East Asia, and a further 16% (56,365) came from South Asia. China has been, and continues to be, the leading country of origin for international students since 2001 and remains the top focus and strategic priority for almost all facets Canadian universities’ internationalization activities, such as international student recruitment, international partnerships, and sustainable international education development. A total of 88% of Canadian institutions place China as their top priority, compared with 65% for Brazil and India and 57% for the us. Furthermore, China remains the top country of origin at the university level with 66,160 students in 2015, four times more than the second highest country, France. 19 The Canadian government also tries to recruit them as top talent sources by recognizing that they may become permanent residents. 20 Students from China comprised 15.4%, or 1,315 students, of those who transitioned to permanent residency in 2015.

Research on Chinese international students in Canada reveals that they face a number of challenges. First, Chinese international students have been treated as cash cows to boost Canada’s economy. They are commodified in the profit-making process, but their individual needs for study and life are not recognized. Thus, students are treated not only as “products,” but also as the state apparatus for economic development. Furthermore, development of friendships with local Canadian students is a challenge for international students’ integration because of perceived differences in cultures, particularly the understanding of friendship. 21, 22

Another issue is internationalization of the curriculum. As increasing recruitment of international students is a shared goal of both the state and institutions, research indicated that more efforts are needed to create more internationalized curriculum and teaching strategies. 23, 24, 25 The curriculum and pedagogy have not been updated to embrace individual identities and values in the teaching and learning process. International students typically perceive Western culture as the core value of their study instead of integrating it with their lived experiences and individual values. In addition, recent literature also implies that there is little research focused on the deep social inequalities embedded in international students’ intersectional identities. This article addresses an important gap in scholarship by examining the experience of Chinese international students from an intersectionality perspective with respect to how experience is shaped by the intersections of race, gender, and class.

Theoretical Framework

Intersectionality theory is genuinely concerned with how social categories related to race, class, and gender interact and influence people’s identities and lived experiences. 26 Intersectionality originated in the 1960s to 1970s with the African-American women’s movements and later Critical Race Theory. It has become a “gold standard multi-disciplinary approach for analyzing subjects’ experiences of both identity and oppression.” 27 Intersectionality captures the transitions from social movement politics to institutional incorporation, thereby framing the impact of intersectionality as a form of critical inquiry and praxis. 28 Particularly, this framework reveals how age, class, color, culture, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, political ideology, race, religion, sex, and sexual orientation relate in complex and intersecting ways to produce social inequality. 29 In addition, intersectionality is an analytic concept and a methodological approach that aims to understand and address the relations between power and inequality within society. Within this framework, this research emphasizes race, gender, and class as distinct social categories of identity. It aims to demonstrate how these components intersect and systems of social oppression are mutually constituted and work together to produce social inequality. 30, 31, 32

Race, gender, and class mutually affect each other. Dei specifically highlights how these factors are interconnected in people’s lives working “against the construction of hierarchies of social oppression.” 33 The concept of race is the symbol of how individuals are ethnically recognized and is a representation of unequal power relations, namely, racism. It can also be understood as “how people relate to each other on the basis of defined social identities and identifications.” 34 On the other hand, gender is a form of identity, a basis of knowledge production, and “a fundamental principle of social organization and identity formation in societies.” 35 Particularly, gender can be a social relation of power that influences, shapes, structures, and is constituted through culture, experience, and history. Last, but not least, class, in this research, refers to social class that includes not only economic capital investment but also the “internalized social structure or social disposition that is acquired from one’s past experiences in specific social contexts.” 36

Intersectionality, which developed through an anti-racism perspective, emphasises not only the intersections of race, gender, and class but, more impor-tantly, their further production of social oppression, relationality and identity, and power relations. It is clear that “oppressions are relational and intersecting” 37 and “different dimensions of social life cannot be separated into discrete or pure strands.” 38 Second, social identities are constructed beyond notions of race, class, and gender, and “bodies and identities (such as race, gender, and class) are linked into the production of knowledge and, specifically, interpretations of experience.” 39 Third, relationality lies in the relationships between systems of race, class, and gender and delineates how multiple identities within the personal domain of power shape social inequality. 40 Finally, intersectionality illustrates the analytic power relations from multiple economic, structural, sociocultural dimensions embedded in the relationality of race, gender, and class. 41 Intersectionality also manifests the complex configurations produced by multiple institutional initiatives and social problems shaped and solved by social institutions. 42

In articulating the internationalization of higher education, intersectionality allows researchers to go beyond a one-dimensional cultural approach to ensure that particular groups are not excluded from diversity and equity and that the voices of these populations are included in the discussion. 43 This inclusion can be reflected in and acted upon through communicating to both staff and students: the administrative services can provide diversity training for university staff and student services. 44 However, the typical cultural competence approach tends to address the cultural aspects rather than students’ multiple identities and the differentiation of their epistemologies and life histories. Therefore, there is a need to go beyond the cultural approach and to understand students’ multiple identities through an intersectionality lens. As the shifting meaning of diversity can be recognized as a neoliberal approach that has altered the contours of social justice initiatives, for international students, intersectionality’s focus on race, gender, and class provides an insightful capacity for understanding complexity in the world, the diversity of the international student body, and how intersections of their identities shape their overseas experiences. Intersectionality creates spaces for recognition in both institutions and students: instead of this student group being labelled by categories, the emphasis on individual differences among this student group highlights that the cultural competence perspective is not sufficient to capture how race, gender, and class intersect in shaping their experiences in a different learning and living environment to produce social inequality.

Research Methodology

To reiterate, the purpose of this study is to explore Chinese international students’ lived experience in Canada, with a specific focus on how race, gender, and class intersect to shape their learning and social practices. In order to fully capture their experiences, which are embedded in their intersectional identities, stories are a good choice for this research because “narration is the practice of constructing meaningful selves, identities, and realities.” 45 Thus, using narrative inquiry helps me to understand the flow of the students’ experiences and life trajectories in Canada over time as well as providing an opportunity to feature their experiences and intersectional identities through their stories. Narrative inquiry is the study of experiences as stories, a way to approach the stories, and a strategy that empowers people to think, sometimes to rethink, those experiences. 46, 47 More importantly, this methodology creates a space for researchers to step back from the narrative texts and ask, “who produces particular kinds of stories, what are their purposes and consequences, and how do they gain acceptance and how are they challenged?” 48 The combination of the narrative methodology and the intersectionality framework is a good fit for this research as it conceptualizes individuals’ stories and acknowledges that biographical, social, cultural, and historical circumstances condition the stories people tell about themselves. This can be influential in how they live their lives, and their stories illuminating social injustice can be viewed as a tool to identify oppressive discourse and indicate a possible social change.

I interviewed five Chinese international students including two male and three female students. At the time of interviewing, these students were attending two different educational institutions in British Columbia. Two participants were in an undergraduate program, two were studying a diploma degree, and one was in a master’s program. Two were aged 18-22, two were aged 23-29, and one was over the age of 30. In this research, data was col-lected through narrative style in-depth interviews and participants were recruited through a Chinese social media platform called “WeChat” and personal networking. Narrative researchers gather data through in-depth interviews and strive to transform the interviewee-interviewer relationship into one of narrator and listener. In this view, interviewing strategies were shifted from asking generalizing experiences to inviting narrators’ specific stories. 49 Participants’ stories were always central during the interviews and interviewers actively listened to the interpretive process. 50 Based on this logic, voices and stories were always the priority within each narrative, and research questions were navigated by those stories to enrich the data collection. 51

Data analysis in narrative inquiry is a process of analyzing the narrative data in order to develop an understanding of the meanings that participants give to themselves, to their environment, and to their lived experiences, and this, in turn, affects the “choice of representations of stories.” 52 In this research, data were analyzed through a thematic analysis approach since this method can be used to identify meanings in participants’ lived experience, views, perspectives, practices, and how they think, feel, and do. 53 Through this process, the stories in this study can be comprehensively and explicitly interpreted in relation to the notions of race, gender, and class formed through individuals’ social, cultural, and historical contexts. The stories are deconstructed to reveal “powerful discourses, hierarchies, presuppositions, deliberate omissions and polar opposites.” 54 This logic, on the other hand, is closely related to the narrative environment and the stories themselves. In my research, data analysis is an inductive, organic, and natural process. I first read and reread the manuscripts to get familiar with the data. While reading, I paid attention to the key words and highlighted them. I then generated codes by tracking where and how patterns occurred. Codes are the “building blocks” to create themes and generate meanings, and are strengthened by a shared core idea. 55 Thus, when organizing the patterns into themes, I focused on how the data speaks to the patterns and supports the context and theoretical framework.

Research Findings

The findings of this research are categorized by three themes: the paradox of racialized experiences, ignorance of gender, and social inequality outside of class.

The Paradox of Racialized Experiences

Canada is often compared to the us when it comes to debates over issues of racism and racialization. There is a tendency to believe that Canadians are less racist than Americans, while some claim that Canadians may be less loud about it. 56 My study shows that Chinese international students experienced discrimination based on skin color. They simultaneously encountered color blindness. This is the paradox of their racialized experiences in Canada. These seemingly opposite and contradictory types of racialization are two sides of the same coin which co-exist among Chinese international students.

Discrimination based on skin color is a legacy of colonialism and a prevalent cause of racism in Canada and elsewhere. Such discrimination manifests itself when Chinese international students come to make friends with local Canadian students. The skin color divided students into the “dominant white” and “people of color.” One participant, Jane, who was a third-year undergraduate in chemistry, shared her difficulties in making friends with white Canadian students. In the third year of studying in the same institution in Canada, Jane did not have any white Canadian she would call a friend. It appears that the color of students’ skin determines who they can be friends with. She noted,

I don’t even have one single person who is a white Canadian that I would call him friend … It seems we don’t have real commonalities with white Canadians. Even though I tried to watch shows or listen to pop music to create common interests with them in order to make friends, still, those interests are too shallow for us to become friends … I also found that if local students who had overseas experiences especially in developing countries, they would be more open to make friends with us. I mean us, people of color.

Jane, Chemistry

Jane also noted that there were more opportunities to develop friendships with students from other countries and she perceived supports for her study and life in a foreign country.

I like Canada as it is multicultural and there are many chances for us to make friends with students from other countries here. I have very good friends who are from Africa and India. I feel like to get along with these group[s] of students [is] much easier because there are commonalities among us…. We talked about discrimination a lot and how things are different because we have colors on our skin. I found [it] very supportive to hear stories and to share ideas with each other when I am living here.

Jane, Chemistry

My participants also discussed and problematized the term “people of color.” The term reinstalls a white frame of viewing the world as white and all racial others as equivalent and interchangeable. 57 It focuses on reducing “the complexities among racial and ethnic groups” and redefining “the outcomes of intersecting power relations of race/ethnicity to a simple matter of color,” which seems to solve “the messy problem of the growing presence of racial/ethnic groups, some with contentious histories of discriminating against each other.” 58 When applied to international students, the term “people of color” homogenizes non-white international students as “students of color” without understanding their individuality. Anne was pursuing a master’s degree of business management. She noted that the term “student of color” was discussed in some courses, but those lectures were too general and did not speak to the individuality of students of different colors. She said,

In our class discussions, students and instructors used the word ‘color’ to describe all students of color … they never considered our differences. This is a way of lumping all of us together … they won’t understand us and know what we need.

Anne, Business Management

The other side of the paradoxical racialized experiences is “color blindness,” which is a powerful means of justifying racial inequality without considering the lived reality of people of color. 59 Despite the fact that perception of color continues to be a consistent determinant of various educational outcomes, color blindness replaces racism with a liberal discourse of fairness and equal opportunity. Color blindness unraces “race,” Bonilla-Silva argues, and makes race-based solutions obsolete. In the context of the learning experiences of international students, color blindness means treating all students the same, which has become a dominant hidden curriculum in Canadian higher education. 60 The sameness approach mirrors contradictions of recognizing one’s ethnicity and viewing it as irrelevant. 61 It negates the cultural, racial, and ethnic background of international students and ignores the ways in which these affect their experiences in the learning environment. The current teaching and learning in North America featured in Eurocentric perspectives, standards, and values do not reflect the knowledge and experiences of the diverse student body. 62, 63

The sameness approach was also discussed by my research participants. John, who was in his last year of undergraduate study of economics, reported barriers to understanding course materials because they were not attached to international students’ lived experiences. He felt alienated. He explained that in his four years of study, most instructors did not refer to his country in either pedagogy or curriculum. The knowledge he learned from university was deeply North American. Instructors’ sameness approach to teaching led him to struggle throughout the whole learning process:

because there is no connection between my life experiences and the reading materials. I had tough times to understand them. Sometimes I won’t understand them at all. This affects my assignments such as writing paper or team presentations.

John, Economics

Ignorance of Gender

The ignorance of gender was also reported as part of experiences that trigger social inequalities among Chinese international students in Canada. Symington notes that people perceive and live with multiple, layered identities derived from social relations, history, and the structures of power and that they are “members of more than one community at the same time, and can simultaneously experience oppression and privilege.” 64 As race, class, and gender are multiple identities that belong to all, it is more crucial to understand how these components are connected, intersected, and structured to produce social oppression and ultimately influence and shape international students’ experience in Canada. One participant in my research highlighted the ignorance of race and gender in understanding international students’ multiple identities. Sophie was initially majoring in architecture and construction. She explained that the class was dominated by white male students from Eurocentric backgrounds and that the instructors intentionally ignored her in and after class. She tried to tell herself that she should concentrate on her studies rather than making a big deal out of it. During the interview, she indicated that there were moments she had a strong desire to fight for her rights as a racialized student but the overwhelming power and oppression triggered frustration and fear of repercussions, preventing her from speaking out as a Chinese woman. She explained,

My voice was never important, and nobody cared about me. Sometimes I wanted to fight for my rights, but I know it won’t help … I am the only Asian female in class.

Sophie, Accounting

Sophie was deeply excluded in class, and she was unable to receive any support from her classmates or even the instructor. As a result, she transferred to a different major. Sophie’s experience echoes the importance of intersectionality in “capturing and theorizing the simultaneity of race and gender as social processes.” 65 Intersectionality does not simply aim to locate individuals within a matrix of domination and privilege. Rather, it sheds light on ways that people in one social group receive benefit while others are excluded or constrained by certain social-structural situations. 66 White racial ignorance is not just about lack of self-awareness; their collective ignorance is a foundation of anti-people of color racism. 67 As Espiritu illustrates, “for women of color, gender is only part of a larger pattern of unequal social relations.” 68 This seeks to demonstrate the racial variations within gender and gendered variation within race through its focus on subjects whose identities contest race-or-gender categorizations. 69 Thus, the need then becomes less about locating oneself within the internationality framework but to understand the experiences of others and the social structures that perpetuate privilege and oppression. 70

Social Inequality beyond Class

Class is not simply a theoretical concept, but refers to discoverable experiences and social relations that are embedded in very ordinary factors of daily life. 71 According to Bourdieu, 72 social class mirrors individuals’ way of doing, thinking, and being that either benefit or hinder the individual social agent and their acquired life opportunities in a particular field. Consistent with previous definitions, my research starts from the idea of class as an economic and social marker and examines how this social class impacts on students’ acquisition of life opportunities and their daily lives. In particular, I examine how they access resources and supports on campus.

There is a misperception among the Canadian public that Chinese international students come from rich families and are well supported by their families. Among my research participants, two students had tuition and living expenses fully covered by their parents. The rest had to earn their tuition fees, or living expenses, or both. Alternatively, they could apply for scholarships made available to students. My participants felt that because of Canadians’ misperceptions of Chinese international students, they had unequal access to certain resources and supports. John’s parents covered his tuition, but he had to earn his living expenses. He applied for scholarships, which also supported his long-term goal to build an academic track record. He put in several applications but was unsuccessful. He felt that he had not been treated equally. The adjudication process was not made transparent. He stated, “We don’t know the number of award receivers, we don’t know how people make decisions and why I have never got one.” He emphasized how inequality impacted international students of color compared to white Canadian students, noting,

Because we are international students, we are treated different from local students. We have fewer possibilities to win scholarships because we have limited options. For local (Canadian) students, they have many more choices…. For us, we only have one or two.

John, Economics

Sophie had similar experiences in applying for scholarships at her institution. While her parents supported her tuition, Sophie had to pay her living expenses herself. She felt devastated and helpless, not only because of the application results but also because of her friends’ reactions. She realized that her friends’ misunderstandings of Chinese students’ social class mirrored the institutional decision-making process.

I am disappointed [about] the unsuccessful results as well as comments from my friends … they would say ‘Why do you still need a scholarship? You must be rich because you are from China. Chinese parents don’t send their kids to study abroad if they are poor’. I think the award adjudicators might think the same so they turned down my application the moment when they saw I’m a Chinese … they may think Chinese students don’t need financial supports for their studies.

Sophie, Accounting

Given the difficulties they had in accessing financial resources and support, several students had to look for a part-time job on campus, which proved challenging. Kelvin, who had to earn his tuition fees and living expenses himself, explained that he found it extremely difficult to find a part-time position on campus because of misperceptions about Chinese international students:

They think we are rich, rich people would have money to afford lives in a foreign country…. They prefer to give job offers to students from other countries but less to Chinese…. Even though it is difficult to find a part-time job, it was very ironic that part-time jobs are easier to find off campus than on campus.

Kelvin, Financial Planning

The preceding discussion confirms the earlier statement that class reflects ways of doing, thinking, and being that either benefit or hinder the individual social agent and their acquired life opportunities in a particular field. 73 Social class identity is an integration of “individuals’ social class of origin, where a person came from; a person’s current felt social class, where a person is now; and attributed social class, what others think of that person.” 74 Reflecting on students’ narratives, the misperception that “Chinese people are all rich” prevents Chinese international students from accessing campus resources and support, inhibits their engagement in campus communities, and ultimately produces social inequality. McLaren 75 notes that domination and liberation coexist in higher education institutions because they “reproduce class relationships but also can serve as a site where these class relationships can be contested.” Furthermore, according to Cabrera, institutions recreate racial inequality and occasionally function as locales that generate some important challenges to systemic racism. The systemic racism of oppression is not an abstract idea; rather, it is rooted in the systemic power of one group to make decisions and take actions negatively affecting other groups of individuals. In addition, social class itself is systemic: it can be viewed as a collection of structures and processes that are designed to reproduce and reinforce the contemporary social class structure. 76

Conclusion

This research explores the lived experiences of Chinese international students in Canada from an intersectionality perspective. It goes beyond the cultural approach and focuses on how race, gender, and class intersect and shape international students’ experiences in Canada and produce social inequality. The research findings are not generalized to the experience of all international students in Canada. The study is more interested in providing insights to understand the complexity of students’ identities and related outstanding issues. First, findings highlight students’ paradoxical experiences of racialization. On the one hand, students faced discrimination based on skin color when developing friendships with local Canadian students. The color line divided them into the “dominant white” and “people of color.” On the other hand, color blindness negates the cultural, racial, and ethnic background of international students and ignores the ways in which these affect their experiences in the learning environment. In addition, the consolidation of race and gender reflects systemic power and perpetuates privilege and social oppression. Last but not least, misperceptions of Chinese international students’ social class impacted negatively on students’ access to resources and life opportunities in Canada.

Research findings further pinpoint the influences of power and how it is interlocked and interdependent in students’ identities and shapes their daily social practices. Power is embedded in social structure, people’s interpersonal lives, and identities. The intersection of power relations does not directly produce racism, oppression, and marginalization of others by groups who possess power and privilege. Instead, they are produced by the racialization mechanism, which is constituted by individual ideological perception. Lastly, individual identities and power relations are intertwined and complicated because of the complexity of individual identities. Analyzing students’ inequality from an intersectional perspective unpacks this complexity and allows researchers to go beyond the categories and examine individuals’ identities through an intersectional and comprehensive lens.

International students bring their values, languages, cultures, and educational backgrounds to Canadian campuses enriching the educational and learning environment. 77 In order to deliver higher quality education that is equitable and socially just, it is essential to understand the differences among students rather than expecting them to assimilate into the existing education system. In light of the research findings, this study calls for an intersectional approach that considers students’ multiple identities in understanding how race, class, and gender are related in complex and intersecting ways in shaping their experiences. At the policy level, instead of treating international students as cash cows to boost the national economy, government needs to provide guidance and support to education institutions and organizations on assisting international students to integrate successfully into the Canadian academic environment. In addition, it is important to reinforce that race, gender, and class intersect and produce inequality within the university environment. Therefore, higher education institutions need to develop a space for individual identities to engage campus communities. At the implementation level, practitioners need to challenge the existing deficit model of international education and instead treating international students as special assets on our campuses, embracing them to our campus life, and incorporating students’ multiple identities to our daily practices to foster a culturally diverse and inclusive education.