Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion from the Perspective of International Community College Students
Abstract
With changing demographics, Canadian institutions of higher education are under pressure to address the challenges of student, faculty, and staff diversity. Despite growing numbers of international students at Canada’s community colleges, this group has historically been underrepresented. The intersectionality of their minority-status characteristics makes their experience complex. This qualitative study of 35 international students and graduates from 15 countries uses critical theory to explore their experiences through the lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Despite a high degree of cultural diversity, some of them experienced stereotyping. Moreover, they tended to engage less in classroom discussions, and many of them were unaware of college resources and services. Consequently, they had difficulty adjusting to life at college and life in Canada.
Metrics
Published
2023-07-12
Keywords
equity, diversity, inclusion, Community colleges, international students, Under-repersented groups
Issue
Section
Special Issue: The Perspectives of Traditionally Underrepresented Students
DOI
License
Copyright in the article is vested with the Author under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
