The Australian Educational Researcher
"I'm not like that, why treat me the same way?" Stereotyping international students as
'migration hunters' and its impact on their learning, employability and connectedness
with the workplace
--Manuscript Draft--
Manuscript Number:
AERE-D-15-00056R2
Full Title:
"I'm not like that, why treat me the same way?" Stereotyping international students as
'migration hunters' and its impact on their learning, employability and connectedness
with the workplace
Article Type:
Original Research
Keywords:
international students, international education, employability, stereotyping, educationmigration nexus, work experiences
Corresponding Author:
Ly Tran
AUSTRALIA
Corresponding Author Secondary
Information:
Corresponding Author's Institution:
Corresponding Author's Secondary
Institution:
First Author:
Ly Tran
First Author Secondary Information:
Order of Authors:
Ly Tran
Thao Vu
Order of Authors Secondary Information:
Funding Information:
Australian Rsearch Council
(DP0986590)
Abstract:
A significant body of literature on international education examines the experiences of
international students in the host country. There is however a critical lack of empirical
work that investigates the dynamic and complex positioning of international students
within the current education-migration nexus that prevails international education in
countries such as Australia, Canada and the UK. This paper addresses an important
but under-researched area of the education-migration landscape by examining how the
stereotyping of students as mere 'migration hunters' may impact their study and work
experiences. It draws on a four-year research project funded by the Australian
Research Council that includes more than 150 interviews and fieldwork in the
Australian vocational education context. Positioning theory is used as a conceptual
framework to analyse how generalising international students as 'mere migration
hunters' has led to the disconnectedness, vulnerability and marginalization of the group
of international students participating in this research.
Response to Reviewers:
Dear Editor,
Dr Ly Tran
We appreciate the reviewer's recognition of our 'fulsome response' to the feedback
he/she provided on our revised manuscript re-submitted on 22 September, 2015.
Below is the account of how we revised the paper in response to his/her further
suggestions received on 20 November, 2015. We specified our responses in
accordance with the order of his/her suggestions. We used yellow text to highlight the
changes we made to the manuscript.
In response to suggestion #1, we carefully proofread and edited the paper.
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In line with Suggestion #2, we added some references related to the claim of
international students as migration hunters made in 2010 and 2015. We revised
paragraphs 1 & 2 of page 2 to make the meaning clearer and the argument
chronologically coherent.
Based on suggestion #3, we provided a direct quote from Birrell's paper about the link
between international students' enrolment in cookery programs and permanent
residency (p.3 last paragraph; page 4, first paragraph).
In response to the Reviewer's question #4, we provided further explanation of the
different messages sent by some VET institutes' marketing practice and the aim of
VET pedagogy (paragraph 2, page 3).
In line with question #5, we provided further explanation of how international students'
desire to migrate might be shaped by the education-migration nexus. (page 4,
paragraph 3).
Based on suggestion #6, we highlighted the the key themes emerging from the data in
the introduction (last paragraph, page 2).
Responding to comment #7 we added some sentences explaining how we applied a
specific category of positioning theory in interpreting excerpts from interview data (last
paragraph page 5).
Based on comment #8, we added a sentence explaining why we used italics for some
parts of the data cited (page 7, paragraph 1).
In line with suggestion #9, we added couple of sentences to explain where the
responsibility for linking international students to workplace opportunities reside
(Paragraph 3, page 12,
With regard to suggestion #10, we provided more detail on how stereotyping might be
related to different categories of positioning (Page 5, last paragraph).
We highlighted all the added references in yellow in the reference list.
Yours sincerely
The authors
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Title Page
Title:
“I'm not like that, why treat me the same way?” Stereotyping international students as
‘migration hunters’ and its impact on their learning, employability and connectedness
with the workplace
Author details:
Dr Ly Tran, School of Education, Deakin University, Australia
Email: ly.tran@deakin.edu.au
Ms Thao Thi Phuong Vu, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of
Melbourne, Australia
Email: thaov@student.unimelb.edu.au
Ly Tran - Biographical details
Dr Ly Tran is a senior lecturer in Education at Deakin University and an Australian
Research Fellow DECRA fellow. Her research focuses on the education-migration
nexus, student mobility, staff professional development on international education and
positioning theory. Ly’s publishing track record comprises numerous refereed articles,
including some award-winning papers, 3 books and 12 book chapters for edited
volumes published by international prestigious publishers including Routledge, Springer
and Wiley Blackwell. Her book “Teaching international students in vocational
education: New pedagogical approaches” published by ACER Press won the 2014
International Education Association of Australia Excellence Award for Best
Practice/Innovation in International Education.
Thao Vu - Biographical details
Thao Vu is a PhD candidate at Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education,
Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her
research interests include positioning theory, student mobility, and University
governance and management. She is the co-author of the new book entitled Higher
education in Vietnam: Flexibility, mobility and practicality in the global knowledge
economy published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Manuscript (excluding authors' names and affiliations)
“I'm not like that, why treat me the same way?” Stereotyping international students
as ‘migration hunters’ and its impact on their learning, employability and
connectedness with the workplace
Abstract
A significant body of literature on international education examines the
experiences of international students in the host country. There is however a
critical lack of empirical work that investigates the dynamic and complex
positioning of international students within the current education-migration
nexus that prevails international education in countries such as Australia,
Canada and the UK. This paper addresses an important but under-researched
area of the education-migration landscape by examining how the stereotyping of
students as mere 'migration hunters' may impact their study and work
experiences. It draws on a four-year research project funded by the Australian
Research Council that includes more than 150 interviews and fieldwork in the
Australian vocational education context. Positioning theory is used as a
conceptual framework to analyse how generalising international students as
‘mere migration hunters’ has led to the disconnectedness, vulnerability and
marginalization of the group of international students participating in this
research.
Introduction
Transnational skill mobility and global competition for skilled human capital have
accelerated over the past few decades. To address the current labour and skill
shortages mainly due to ageing and fertility decline, recent policy efforts in countries
such as Australia, Canada and the UK lean more towards retaining international
student graduates from domestic universities rather than attracting migrants from offshore (Gribble & Blackmore, 2012; Hawthorne, 2013; Robertson, 2011). This policy
focus is driven by the common assumption about the advantage of international
students as potential migrants based on their domestically relevant educational
qualifications and skills, locally recognised credentials, familiarity with the host
culture and host-country language ability (Hawthorne, 2013). In Australia, promoting
the education-migration pathway has been perceived as the government win-win
policy. This policy capitalises on the lucrative education export market as
international education is the biggest service export industry generating 16.6 billion
dollar for the national economy in 2014 (Hare, 2015). At the same time, the policy
helps to attract and retain skilled locally trained human capital. This policy affects all
education sectors including higher education (HE), vocational education and training
(VET) and schools.
Around the world, there are approximately 4.5 million students pursuing overseas
study (OECD, 2014). VET was the fastest growing sector in the number of
international student enrolments in Australia between 2005 and 2009 and currently
ranks second behind the HE sector, despite the turbulence caused by the collapse of a
number of ‘shonky’ private colleges and changes to Australia’s skilled migration
1
policy. There are at present 149,785 international student enrolled in VET (AEI,
2015). The period 2009-2010 witnessed a crisis to the VET sector as a number of
VET private colleges actively marketed their courses as providing the pathway to
migration rather than the study opportunity and did not invest in ensuring a quality
education for international students (Marginson et al., 2010; Perkins, 2009; Tran,
2013). In 2010 the Australian government amended the General Skilled Migration
Scheme in ways that restricted courses popular with many international VET students,
emphasised high level qualifications, readjusted point allocation and required
independent skills testing of graduates. Maximum priority is given to applicants with
employer or regional sponsorship (DIAC, 2010). These policy changes have reduced
the link between vocational education and permanent residency (Tran & Nyland,
2011). The Centre for Population and Urban Research’s Immigration Overshoot
Report (CPUR, 2012) indicates that between a half of and two thirds of international
students returned to their countries of origin after graduation in 2011-2012 and the
rest remained in Australia on temporary visa, further study visa, tourist visa or
permanent residency visa.
The development of international education-migration pathway in VET over the past
decade has been associated with a sweeping generalisation of international VET
students as mere ‘migration hunters’ or ‘PR hunters’ 1 who do not have a genuine
interest in learning and accordingly colleges are seen as ‘migration factories’ or ‘PR
factories’ (Bass, 2006; Birrell et al. 2009; Birrell & Healy, 2010; Kinnaird, 2015).
However, little is known about how such labelling has impacted international
students’ learning and connectedness with the workplace and the broader community.
This paper aims to respond to this paucity in the literature by analysing the
detrimental effects of the stereotyping of international students as mere ‘migration
hunters’.
This paper emerges from a research project funded by the Australian Research
Council that examines the learning and engagement of international students within
the migration-education nexus. The research includes more than 150 interviews with
international students and teachers as well as fieldwork in 25 colleges in Australia.
Using positioning theory as a conceptual framework, the research shows that for the
international student participants in this research, a mere ‘PR hunter’ is an unwanted
and unjust transnational identity imposed on them. This fails to recognise their career
aspirations and multiple identities defined and redefined by their own subjectivity as
well as their interaction with transnational social spaces.
This paper begins with a discussion of the research on the education-migration nexus
that prevails international education in Australia. We then proceed to discuss the use
of positioning theory as a conceptual framework and the research design. The
subsequent section analyses the key themes emerging from the data including the
effects of the generalisation of international students as ‘PR hunters’ on teaching and
learning practices and student employability and connectedness with the workplace.
1
PR is the abbreviation of permanent residency commonly used in Australia
2
We conclude by addressing the implications for the institutional community to foster
a more inclusive environment for international students.
International students in the education-migration pathway
There is a significant body of research exploring the relationship between
international education and migration (Baas, 2006; Birrell & Perry, 2009; Hawthorne,
2013; Robertson, 2011, 2013; Tang et al., 2014; Valentin, 2014). These include the
nature and characteristics of the study-migration pathway (Hawthorne, 2013),
international students’ motivations for migration (Robertson, 2011, 2013), their future
aspirations, and their career and migration trajectories in the country of education
(Tang et al., 2014). Neilson (2009) points out the unintended consequences of the
education-migration nexus including the changing demographics of students seeking
PR, education providers’ conscious provision or expansion of courses which are given
advantage in PR pathways, and the adaptation of the marketing of courses to
prospective students. While VET pedagogy aims to promote equal opportunities and
access for all students and the inclusion of diversity, the marketing of courses
attached with PR advantages appears to be predominantly oriented towards students
as migration hunters rather than education for all. Robertson (2001, p.2207) argues
that ‘this all contributed to public backlash against migrants as undesirable subjects
but also contrastingly against the system as exploitive. International students were
thus simultaneously and contradictorily portrayed as opportunists and victims.’
The discourse around international VET positions international students as a needed
and undesired group at the same time. There seems to be a contradictory positioning
of international students in Australian nation-state from different actors: as a much
valued group by the institution versus an unwanted marginalised group in the
workplace/community. Even within the institutional discourse, there is a contradiction
in institutional policy and pedagogic reality with regard to the positioning of
international students. Institutional websites and policy documents represent them as
valuable members with regards to both their cultural and consumer capitals. However,
in reality, pedagogic practices mainly construct them as ‘the other’ and insufficient
pedagogic investment has been made to capitalise on their cultural backgrounds and
experiences to enrich the teaching and learning for all (Leask, 2009; Ryan, 2011; Tran
& Nguyen, 2015; Tran, 2011). In the media and public discourse, international
students are positioned mainly within the consumer frame and deficit model. For
example, the recent ABC Four Corners episode’s Degrees of Deception (2015)
construct international students as no more than victims, cheaters or migration
hunters. Nevertheless, Robertson (2011) rightly observes that Australia has not yet
developed nuanced understandings of the international student experiences in the
education-migration space. Thus this paper fills this gap in our existing knowledge by
analysing how the international students who participated in this research position
themselves and the impact of the social positioning on them within the educationmigration nexus.
3
Constructing international students in VET, especially who study hospitality subjects
as ‘PR hunters’, Birrell et al. (2009) claim international students are interested in
investing in cookery courses as a step stone to migration. Subsequently, Birrell and
Perry (2009) argue that since international students can potentially earn little if they
return to work in developing countries with a VET cooking credential, their
investment in Australian education must be to secure permanent residency. These
authors maintain ‘the overseas students were prepared to pay for this instruction
[cookery couse], so it was alleged, because it led to a permanent residence (PR) visa’
(Birrell et al., 2009:63). These authors’ assumption lumps all international VET
students into a homogenous group while ignoring the career aspirations and the
genuine desire to return and work in their home country of a number of international
students.
While works by Baas (2005, 2006) provide a useful account on the experiences of
Indian students who use education as an entrance to permanent residency in Australia,
it conveys the impression that the majority of Indian students, if not all, are PR
hunters. In particular, the author emphasises permanent residence as a ‘form of
compensation’ for an unsatisfactory education experience that Indian students are
exposed to in Australia. In contrast, based on large scale empirical research with
international students, Tran and Nyland’s (2011) study reveals the educationmigration culture, into which many international students have immersed, to some
extent, conditions and shapes their desire to migrate. Some international students did
not have the original intention to migrate but their growing awareness of this
migration-education nexus and their interaction with peers who are interested in
migration influences their decision to apply for permanent residency. Tran and
Nyland’s (2011) study further points out four main forms of the nexus between
overseas study and migration. The first category includes students who are motivated
to undertake international education with dual objectives to secure migration and to
acquire the skills associated with their chosen occupation. The second one regards
migration as a ‘second chance opportunity’, the third sees migration as the sole
ultimate objective of overseas study and the fourth has lost the intention to migrate
that they initially had (ibid., p.17).
Positioning theory as a conceptual framework to interpret the effects of
stereotyping international students as mere PR hunters
In this paper, Harré and van Langenhove’s (1999) positioning theory is used to
analyse how international students self-position and are other-positioned by related
actors as well as the conditions that shape these specific ways of positioning.
Positioning theory focuses on identifying aspects of dominant discourse rules and
conventions, rights, duties and obligations which are referred to as ‘the moral order’
in discursive practices (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999). This theory is a useful
conceptual tool to unpack students’ positions within the institutional structures and
related communities, and how they perceive to be positioned in a specific ways
(desirable or undesirable) by others in the discourse community. It allows an
exploration of whether the subject in positioning accepts, accommodates or rejects
dominant ways of constructing, viewing or making sense of a phenomenon and their
4
impacts. Harré et al. (2009, p.5) stress positioning theory is concerned with revealing
the explicit and implicit patterns of reasoning that are realised in the ways that people
act towards others.
Positioning theory indicates that when people engage in discourse as individuals or
members of a group, they take up a certain position (Davies & Harré, 1990; van
Langenhove & Harré, 1999). Hollway (1984, p.236) highlights ‘discourses make
available positions for subjects to take up. These positions are in relation to other
people.’ In this regard, conversations between individuals are statements of how
things appear to the subject: the discursive construction of personal stories makes a
person's actions intelligible and relatively determinate as social acts within which
certain members of the conversation have specific locations. Viewed this way,
international students, teachers, domestic/international peers and other members
operating in the students’ community are social actors whose ways of thinking and
acting can be made intelligible by examining the ways they take up positions in
conversations. In particular, Hollway (1984) indicates discourse is not limited to
conversations amongst individuals as discourse can take place in the minds of
individuals. Also, Harré and his colleagues (1999) argue that a distinctive feature of
positioning as a social act is that positions are fluid, dynamic and open to challenge.
Positions are understood as clusters of rights, duties and obligations (Harré & Slocum,
2003). Hence, the ways students and teachers position themselves and each other are
interrelated to their perceptions of their rights, duties and obligations within the moral
order of the institutional context. Van Langenhove and Harré (1999, p.23) contend
that 'the rights for self-positioning and other-positioning are unequally distributed and
not all situations allow for or call for an intentional positioning of the participants.'
To interpret the impact of generalising international students as mere PR hunters, we
use the following concepts of positioning: self-positioning, forced-self positioning,
positioning of others and re-positioning. Self-positioning arises when a person takes
on a particular stance and expresses his/her personal agency in order to achieve a
particular goal in discursive practice (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p.24). This
category is applied to interpret excerpts of interview data which are related to how
students or teachers take up a specific position or stance when discussing the effect of
the stereotyping on their practices. With regard to forced-self positioning, van
Langenhove and Harré (1999, p.26) propose that it is different from deliberate selfpositioning in that 'the initiative now lies with somebody else rather than the person
involved.’ In the case of this research, forced-self positioning is adopted to interpret
how the students position themselves in the ways they think they are required or
stereotyped by other actors. Other positioning is that one's intentional positioning of
oneself in a certain way can lead to the positioning of someone else in the correlative
position (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999). This category is used to interpret how
students or teachers position other involved parties through the ways they express
their own stance on an issue. Repositioning occurs when a person adopts a new
position as a result of previous experiences and discussions. This concept is used to
5
interpret how the participants might shift their stance due to external influences,
internal changes or previous experiences.
Adopting these frameworks of positioning theory, this paper focuses on the salient
themes arising from international students’ and teachers’ views about the impacts of
‘PR hunter’ stereotypes on pedagogy, teachers’ perspectives and students’
connectedness with the classroom and host community.
Research Design
This paper is derived from a four-year research project funded by the Australian
Research Council through the Discovery scheme. The research aims to examine
international VET students’ learning and engagement experiences within host
institutions as well as the broader community. It also examines teachers’ views and
adaptation of pedagogic work in teaching this cohort. The research draws on a
qualitative approach. It includes interviews with more than 150 international students
and staff and fieldwork conducted in dual-sector and VET institutions in three main
states of Australia: New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD) and Victoria (VIC).
After gaining the approval from the ethics committee at the University where the
researchers were based, the student participants were selected based on the broad
criteria that they are enrolled as an international student in either a public or private
VET institute and they volunteer to participate in the research. The teachers selected
for the research are those who are involved in teaching international students and are
willing to participate in the research. International student and teacher participants
were recruited through an invitation sent to the Director of International Program
from their institute who helped circulate the invitation among their international
students and teachers. Those who agreed to participate were asked to attend a face to
face interview which lasted between 30 to 60 minutes. The interviews were digitally
recorded and transcribed. Second interviews were also undertaken with a small
number of students who were willing to share with the chief investigator their
experiences and changes as they progressed through the course during the first six
months of their study. This paper focuses primarily on the semi-structured interview
data with 105 international students and 50 staff members.
The key questions used in the interview with international students include: What are
their purposes of undertaking the VET course? How do their purposes influence the
way they learn? What do they think about the ways their teachers teach international
students in VET? and Are there any stereotypes and generalisations that affect their
learning and engagement in the community? For teachers, the primary lines of inquiry
focus on how they perceive international students’ purposes of investing in VET
course, how these purposes might shape international students’ learning and
engagement and how they adapt their teaching to accommodate international
students’ study purposes and learning characteristics. The interview excerpts cited in
this paper arose mainly from these questions.
6
A small number of excerpts which are typical of the data set were used in the paper
due to the scope of the paper. The key themes on which this paper focuses and the
relevant quotes were identified through a thorough process of coding using NVivo
software, version 10. The researchers read the interview transcripts several times and
utilised NVIVO software to categorise the interview data. The preliminary analysis
was inductive and based on the themes and patterns that emerged from the coding.
Then positioning theory (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999) is used to interpret the
ways international students self-positioned and perceived how they were otherpositioned by their teachers and other actors in the broader community to whom they
relate. Italics are used to highlight some parts of the interview excerpts that contain
the key points conveyed by the participants. To protect the confidentiality of the
participants, their names and institutions are kept anonymous.
As explained in the above section, positioning theory (van Langenhove & Harré,
1999), especially its notions of right-duty, self-positioning, forced self-positioning
and other-positioning are used to interpret the interview accounts. The discussion of
the key findings in the next section uncovers uncomfortable realities about the
adverse effects of the positioning of international students as those who see migration
as the sole goal of overseas study on their learning and sense of belonging.
‘PR hunter’ stereotype and effects on teaching practices
Teachers’ commitments to students, commitments to teaching and their capacity to
enhance students’ connectedness with learning and workplaces are essential for
ensuring high quality educational practices. Yet, from the positioning of the students,
teachers and support staff participating in this research, teachers’ fulfilment of these
duties can be considerably undermined if their pedagogic practices are overridden by
the stigma attached to international students as ‘mere PR hunters’. The following
observations by the students in this study illuminate the repercussions of teachers’
other-positioning of international students as migration hunters on their classroom
interactions with international students and on the students’ self-esteem:
I felt that my contribution is not valued. That is because I am seen as someone
who comes here to take something from the system, like a PR [permanent
residency]. But I felt that they didn’t recognise that I want to be part of it and
contribute something [Crying]…. Or just treat it as if, you know, like you take
no interest in the class or even in the people around you. That really makes me
angry if I see that. But I feel I'm not like that, why treat me the same way [as
those who are only interested in migration, not learning]? (Indian Student,
Community welfare, Public College, VIC).
There is a lot of stigma that you’re doing the TAFE [Technical and Further
Education] course and getting residency. […] on the very first day the
Program Manager asked me, are you doing this for residency? […] it’s like
putting a label on me already you want to see me as someone who is after PR.
7
I feel that there is a stigma attached to it as if these students come here and
they do the course just for migration […] If you [teachers] treat us with
suspicion all the time and say, well you’re not really interested in learning,
you’re just here for the visa, then there's no help offered to us in finding
placements (Indian Student, Nursing, Public College, VIC)
In line with positioning theory, forced-self positioning is related to how students
position themselves in the ways they think they are essentialised or stereotyped by
other actors (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999). The above excerpts show that the
international student participants are forced-self positioned as migration hunters, and
such positioning contradicts with the multiple aspirations attached to the learner status
that they bring into the classroom. From these students’ viewpoint, their teachers’
other-positioning of international students is riddled with bias. The students from the
above excerpts believe that their teachers do not position international students as
genuine learners, opposite to how they position themselves with endeavours to be
engaged in the educational process and to make contributions to the wider
community. This is strongly expressed by the Indian student in the first interview
excerpt. Both of the students’ forced-self positioning conveys their disappointment
and indignation when all international VET students are automatically labelled as PR
hunters, and on this account, their genuine ambitions are ignored, their motivations
for learning are questioned and their identity is affronted. The students’ criticism is in
line with Tran and Nyland’s (2011) compelling empirical evidence which challenges
claims made by researchers such as Birrell and Perry (2009) that the only motive of
all international VET students is to chase after PR. According to Tran and Nyland
(2011), migration can be among the multiple purposes of overseas study that
individual students embrace, but this goal can complement their aspiration for
learning and for career advancement rather than contradicts them. Furthermore, the
two authors also assert permanent residency is not necessarily behind every
international student’s pursuit of VET as a number of international students undertake
overseas education with bona fide desire to return and to work in their home country.
The teacher and support staff respondents also concur with the students’ observations.
They contend that the stereotype can undermine teachers’ sense of responsibility and
take its toll on the teacher-student reciprocal educational experiences:
Yeah, unfortunately I think a lot of them [teachers] have given up. And so
there’s a lot of just pass them, just pass them, just pass them. I think there’s
significant latitude given to international students because they don’t care and
they are only interested in PR, the teacher doesn’t really care… Why should I
try to teach them in different ways if they don’t care about learning anyway?
So there seems to be a bit of a cease-fire where, well I’ll teach the minimum
requirements. So really what we’ve done is we’ve just slipped into
mediocrity… And I think the teachers just said, you know what? What’s the
point? I’m still getting paid my hourly rate. I’ll make it easier for everyone. So
we see more multiple-choice questions. We see things that are easier to mark
8
because hey, they don’t care. Why should I care? (Teacher, Hospitality
Management, Private College, VIC)
And some head teachers even been quite rude to students and turn students
away and say do other course, why don’t you do other course? That course is
higher point than my course [childcare]. […] Say things like “you may want to
consider studying another course that is more suited to your goal of getting
residency.”…Well this student came to me and the counsellor advised her to
see me, the student is really interested in studying childcare, and doing quite
well. She’s not the one that really just wants to get the residency or fill in the
time. (Support Staff, Public College, NSW)
These interview excerpts lend support to the student participants’ positioning of
themselves and of the teachers. In a similar vein with the students’ self-positioning
discussed above, the support staff’s other-positioning of international VET students
recognises their genuine interest in the subject and the heterogeneity of learning
motivations in this cohort of students, just like other cohorts of students. Nevertheless,
according to both the teacher and support staff’s other-positioning of the teachers,
these attributes of international students are not always appreciated by all VET
teaching staff. The teacher mentions three times in this brief interview excerpt that a
group of teachers hold a strong view that “they [international students] don’t care”
about learning. The support staff respondent also indicates that the able and ardent
student can be misjudged and mistreated by the teacher who misconstrues the
student’s interests and goals because of the PR hunter stereotype.
The adverse impact of this unjust perception inflicted on international VET students’
learning can be substantial. As remarked by the teacher, a number of his colleagues
have dropped their teaching motivations, expectations and sense of responsibility.
These teachers are deemed to consciously adopt the PR-hunter other-positioning of
the students as an excuse for becoming lenient and unconcerned with the students’
learning, and unmotivated in improving teaching quality. The support officer’s
reflection on the head teachers’ confronting attitude and treatment towards
international students reveals another inimical influence of teachers’ stereotypical
belief. When teachers choose to tag a PR hunter label on every international VET
student, they not only fail to perform their duty to shape and facilitate the students’
connectedness with learning; they also become an institutional hurdle that disconnects
the students with genuine motivation for learning.
These observations of teachers’ other-positioning and their pedagogic practices
resonate Nespor’s (1987) influential work on the importance of teachers’ beliefs on
teachers’ teaching practices. Beliefs, according to Nespor (1987, pp. 318-319), are
constituted by “existential presumption[s]” which are strongly personal, affective,
evaluative and can be different from reality. Although beliefs are not necessarily
evidence based and reliable, they exert a powerful influence on the holders’
behaviours and decisions (Nespor, 1987; Rokeach, 1968; Sigel, 1985). Teachers’
9
different types of beliefs, including those towards the learners, have been well
recognised to be imperative to teachers’ behaviours (Archer, 1999; Nespor, 1987;
Pettit, 2011; Thompson, 1992). Peregoy and Boyle (1997, cited in Pettit, 2011, p.124)
remark that in English language teaching, for example, if teachers hold unjustified
deficit beliefs towards learners, even when the teachers are well-intentioned,
discrimination might happen unconsciously. Given the conceptual parallel between
teachers’ ontological belief and teachers’ other-positioning of learners in light of
positioning theory (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999), theories about teachers’ beliefs
are helpful in shedding light on the research finding about the impingement of
teachers’ other-positioning of international students as PR hunters on their teaching
practices and their commitments to the students.
The data, especially the statement ‘What’s the point? I’m still getting paid my hourly
rate. I’ll make it easier for everyone’, reveals the structural conditions within which
VET teachers work and the social context of the stereotyping. VET is facing the
increasing casualised and intensified workforce aiming at cost reduction for VET
institutes (Productivity Commission 2011). VET teachers generally work in
precarious and vulnerable conditions. Within the private VET institutes, to which the
first interview excerpt above refers, most teachers involved in teaching international
students often work as casuals or on a short-term contract. Their job is not secure and
their contract mainly depends on the presence international students in their program
(Tran, 2013). According to Nakar (2013) and Guthrie (2010), sessional teachers,
which account for increasing proportions of the VET workforce, have limited access
to professional development and support including how to deal with the challenges
arising from changing student demographics. Therefore, these sociological conditions
bear on their attitudes to their work and their teaching of international students,
making them not invest seriously in their teaching, easily accept some common
stereotypes at the face value and adopt a ‘let it go’ attitude.
Other teachers indeed challenge the mind-set that if international students see
migration as the sole aim for their overseas study and are not intrinsically motivated
to learn, then there is no need for teachers to be concerned about the quality of
teaching and learning:
My: And do you think a lot of trainers would feel disappointed if they see
some of their students who are not engaged in learning and are only interested
in PR?
Lian: I do, but I see that as an excuse. Because I can easily that myself, I
could say look, I know you’re only here for PR and why should I bother? But
again, as I get back to the fact, I as a trainer of hospitality, it’s my
responsibility to basically give them all the benefits and demonstrate to them
what the benefits are. If they choose to take that in, that’s their issue not my
issue. My issue is to be there as a trainer and I think that if I take the attitude
of oh, you’re only here for PR, I’m not really concerned about you, well I’m
not doing my job. So I have a certain responsibility as a trainer to do that.
Look, it is hard and it’s frustrating to have students sit there that you know are
10
really not passionate about it but you have an obligation to the others that are.
(Teacher, Hospitality Management, Private College, VIC)
In light of positioning theory, the teacher in this interview positions teachers/trainers
as professionals who take cognizance of their responsibilities and maintain high
integrity in delivering the “job.” She concedes that students with low or no candid
interest in learning could be “hard and frustrating” hurdles to a teacher. Yet she
dismisses justifications for the teacher’ failure to fulfill their obligation on this
account. Teachers or trainers, according to her self-positioning, have no right to
compromise the education quality. Regardless of international students’ purpose of
investment in the course, it is obligatory for teachers to consistently enact their
responsibility as a teacher to optimise students’ learning, not only due to their sense of
professional duty, but more importantly, for the sake of those students who are
genuinely keen to learn. The teacher also comments on her approach to cultivating
students’ sense of belonging to learning by helping them gain understanding of the
“benefits” of the subject, guiding them towards a positive perception and more
nuanced understandings of the potential attached to the professional field that they are
studying. Such pedagogic belief in fulfilling their self-perceived responsibilities is the
manifestation of “their commitments to students and commitments to teaching”
(Firestone & Rosenblum, 1988, p.288). According to Firestone and Rosenblum
(1988), the synergy of these two dimensions of teachers’ commitments has important
implications for teachers’ emotional care for students, high expectations for students’
achievements and pedagogical interest.
Akin to the teacher’s opinion, the student participants’ other-positioning of the
teachers also indicates teachers’ duties to nurture students’ connectedness with
learning:
And I think if you [teachers] want someone to genuinely do the course or
genuinely be part of your community then it’s your job to help them do that.
So maybe help them find a good placement, help them under systems, help
them learn. […] I think well if you [teachers] want, if you really want to train
students then you have to be interested in teaching. It’s not just the student that
has to be interested in learning with. It works both ways. (Indian Student,
Nursing, Public College, VIC)
[T]he teachers can find more pathways to the workplace because cookery
you've got to learn it from the industry, school is also important but you also
have got to be in a good restaurant to learn all the good stuffs. There can be
many levels of finding jobs, they can, at least, provide us a list of fine
restaurants in the city or in the area around or at least they can give us with
reference letter or something like that so that we can get it in our resume. And
more for the counselling about the job and also the pay/wage. (Korean
Student, Cookery, Public College, NSW)
11
Both of the interviewees identify teachers’ important responsibility to support VET
students to gain access to and to learn in work placements, which are considered an
integral component of VET programs. This other-positioning of teachers’ professional
responsibility resonates with the dominant trend in the current VET teaching and
learning practice that focuses on “closer engagement in work-based learning” (Hillier,
2009, p.6). It is also well reflected in previous discussions of VET teachers’ roles,
which typically include teachers’ facilitation of students’ ‘empirical learning’ in the
workplace (Attwell, 1999, p.192).
The Indian student in the above interview excerpt broadly points out two essential
aspects of teachers’ responsibilities in fostering international students’ sense of
belonging. She first underlines teachers’ transformative agency in cultivating
students’ genuine inquisitiveness about learning, and that in order to do so, it is
imperative that teachers be motivated about their own teaching. In addition, she
positions teachers as the bridge that makes international students more connected to
learning, the workplace and the host community. The articulation of teachers’
responsibility towards international students’ broadest sense of connectedness as an
educational outcome echoes Tran’s and Nguyen’s (2015, p.14) accentuation of
“teaching as cosmopolitan work” that aims to foster students’ meaningful engagement
with “local and global diversity.” Together with the teacher’s self-positioning, the
student participants’ other-positioning of the teachers identifies the following
responsibilities of VET teachers: teachers are duty bound to maintain integrity and
commitment to their students and their teaching job so that they are able to nurture
students’ connectedness with learning and to foster their engagement with the
workplace as well as the wider community.
Impact on international students’ employability and connectedness with the
workplace: “[E]mployers don’t want to employ us”
Work-based learning or learning in the workplace has been recognised as an essential
dimension of vocational education and training (Attwell, 1999; Hillier, 2009).
Research evidence suggests that the practice of linking international students to
workplace opportunities varies among different VET institutes (Tran, 2013). For
some institutes, such responsibility resides with the teachers or international students
themselves while for others, it is an institutional responsibility. Nevertheless,
international students’ vocational experience and their connectedness with the
workplace are vulnerable to discrimination. International students are portrayed as ‘an
exploited invisible workforce’ (Nyland et al, 2009). While this victimisation happens
when the students are already employed, this research also shows that international
VET students in this study are depicted as an undesirable workforce because of the
PR-hunter stereotype:
Yeah, if you go for the job of some places, they think that Indians are just for
the permanent residence. But not everyone is like that… employers don’t want
to employ us… Saying they are students but they just don't want to study and
12
develop the skills, they just want to get PR. If so many persons in the industry
and the teachers also saying that Indian students are not attempting as hard as
other nationalities. There are some students, Indian students, who are not
studying hard or they're just after the PR or the job. So but not everyone is the
same. (Indian Student, Cookery, Public College, QLD)
Some employers are scared. They're scared that if I employ this person, all
they're really going to do is want me to sign them off for PR. Then as soon as I
sign them off for PR, they're gone. And that has happened in some cases. He
signs the paper one day and the person's gone the next day. Is it going to upset
my customers if I have too many overseas workers? And that can happen. I've
got an employer out there that says, ‘I would like to take on a Vietnamese
baker but my customers would not allow that. So that would affect my
business so I can't choose to do that.’ (Teacher, Bakery, Public College, VIC)
These interview excerpts enunciate how the PR hunter stereotype diminishes the
opportunities for international VET students to be employed in an Australian
workplace. In light of positioning theory, international students are often otherpositioned by both local employers and teachers as opportunistic PR hunters who lack
commitment, diligence and genuine aspirations to learn and develop professionally.
The Indian cookery student’ reflection mirrors Bass’s (2005, 2006) observation that
Indian students are pervasively viewed as PR schemers, which is disproved by the
student’s self-positioning. The teacher’s other-positioning substantiates the reported
adversity against international students’ employability, adding that not only
employers, but also the customers, are sceptical and discriminatory against
international students.
This finding reveals that barriers to international students’ participation in the local
workplace are complicated and accumulate from more than one source. While
employers’ hesitation is evident, teachers’ role in assisting their students and lifting
the stigma appears to be missing. Based on the Indian student’s other-positioning,
teachers’ discriminating judgments about Indian students exacerbate the prejudice
against this ethnic group in the local industry. In the case of a Vietnamese bakery
student who was turned down because of the customers’ disapproval of foreign
workers as reflected in the above excerpt, outright racism from the host community
intensifies social impediment on international students’ engagement in the local
workplace. This multiplicity of obstacles stymies those international students’ access
to a meaningful vocational experience and impinges on the sense of belonging that
international students in this research seek to build up with the host society.
The sociological context also shapes employers’ attitude towards international
students and explains employers’ inclination to take a cautious approach to employing
international students. Both the student’ self-positioning and teachers’ otherpositioning of international students concede the fact that there are international
students who deploy tactics to take advantage of local employers for their PR hunt.
Reporting on the social conditions of employing international students, Tran’s (2013)
13
research also found that some employers are reluctant to take international students
because they had prior experience with international students who left the
organisation right after getting the work experience certificate for migration purpose,
which may cause disruption to the workplace. Employers’ reluctance might stem from
the assumption that international students may leave the country after their graduation
(Patrick et al., 2008). Moreover, employers’ uncertainty about international students’
visa regulations and work right in the host country is another structural barrier to their
acceptance of international students into the workplace. Another social condition that
affects employers’ attitude is the recent media reports on how international students
have been discriminated against and exploited at the workplace, which makes
employers cautious about being caught with potential troubles in employing
international students (Tran, 2013).
However, as the student participant comments “not everyone is like that […] not
everyone is the same,” it is unfair to project every international student with identical
and predictable motivations and behaviours of migration hunters. Similar to this
observation, other students in this study also express their frustration over the
automatic assumption that international VET students are only after PR:
One day in the kitchen, one of the guys asked me what does Stacy really wants
to do? I mean like do you think this is not the thing that I really want to do?
He just assumes that I am doing this for PR and anything like that. […] So it’s
kind of frustrating to be seen in those kinds of standard that if you are not a
resident, and you are studying cookery so you must be after PR. You must only
for PR. So it is kind of frustrating (Korean Student, Cookery, TAFE, NSW)
My: And what did you feel when people stereotype you and put you under
the umbrella of only after PR?
Salina: I feel very bad, yeah, I feel very bad.
My: Yes why?
Salina: Some of them, they are only here for PR so their main aim is not to
complete their studies, nothing. They just want PR first. But it's not true [for
all]. (Indian Student, Welfare Service, Private College, QLD)
These students’ criticism once again refutes the overgeneralisation made by some
teachers, employers and other members in the community that the only motive for
international students studying VET in Australia is a pathway to permanent residency.
This stereotypical assumption overlooks the range of purposes that underpin the
student participants’ investment in vocational education overseas. It is worthwhile
reaffirming that the nexus between migration and learning, as Tran and Nyland (2011)
explain, is confined to not only the sole intention to migrate but also to professional
advancement, professional self-formation and dual objectives to secure migration and
vocational skill advancement. When migration is perceived to be the motivation for
the students’ international education, it should not be understood simplistically as
“only migration, no study” mind-set.
14
Conclusion
This research shows that a mere ‘PR hunter’ is an unwanted and unjust transnational
identity imposed on the international VET students participating in this study. Firstly,
despite the fact that a group of international students see migration as the sole and
ultimate goal of their overseas study, essentialising all international students as mere
‘PR hunters’ is unjust as this stigma might lead to adverse impact on the teaching of
the whole international student cohort and on their integration into various aspects of
the host country. It can provide an excuse for teachers and institutions to shy away
from investing on improving the quality of education for this group. Research
evidence indicates that even if international students are primarily driven by the desire
to secure PR, it does not mean that they will be demotivated or poor students or
workers. Nor does it mean that they deserve of poor treatment and low quality of
education, notwithstanding the fact that using education as a stepping stone to PR is a
legal pathway. Secondly, this stereotype fails to capture the diverse and nuanced
identities and future aspirations of the international student participants as shown in
this research. The desire for migration does not necessarily exclude the motivation to
learn. The deficit ontological belief inflicts prejudicial restrictions on the student
participants’ ability to pursue their genuine endeavours and provokes negative
emotions and perception towards the host community.
As teachers are involved in both institutional and work placement experiences of VET
students, evidently teachers’ role in shaping or shattering the stereotype against
international VET students is critical. By highlighting the role of teachers in fostering
or inhibiting international students’ sense of connectedness, this research provides a
deeper insight into the current discussion on the range of factors influencing
international students’ connectedness, particularly those related to the institutional
contexts documented by Leask (2009). Teachers, specifically teachers’ ontological
beliefs about international students and their learning, exert a paramount impact on
students’ connectedness to learning and their opportunity to connect with the
workplace and the outside community. Teachers’ positive beliefs about students are
able to bring out a positive influence on the students’ educational experiences, ergo
on their connectedness. Vice versa, teachers’ biased perception of international
students can impinge on their commitments to the students and adversely reshape
their pedagogical approaches.
Institutions should not simply reproduce the social injustice already inscribed on
international students in the workplace or in the community. In order to optimise
international students’ learning and foster their sense of belonging, it is crucial that
VET teachers acknowledge the heterogeneity and complexity of the international
student cohort, instil confidence and positiveness in their beliefs about the students’
aspirations and motivations, and proactively exercise their agency in eliminating the
unjust stereotype. Such positive changes in teachers’ beliefs and attitudes depend on
their personal dispositions, as well as on various experiential and educational
conditions (Garmon, 2004) which are provided to help teachers foster their beliefs
about diversity and their capacity to change social and cultural stereotypes. The
15
plethora of research in intercultural education of pre-service teachers, for example,
has indicated the possible correlation between teacher candidates' engagement in
these programs and the development of their multicultural awareness, knowledge and
skills for teaching culturally diverse classrooms (Akiba, 2011; Capella-Santana, 2003;
Downey & Cobbs, 2007; Pattnaik, 1997; Tran, Young & Di Lella, 1994). Of great
significance are institutional commitments to providing well-structured, well-timed
and well-thought programs conducive to teachers’ beliefs and capacity to work with
multicultural student cohorts and work towards changing cultural and racial
stereotypes (Akiba, 2011; Breault, 1995; Lanas, 2014; Mills, 2008). In addition,
institutions should provide accessible conditions to support international students in
reporting and coping with stereotypical treatments, as well as to facilitate meaningful
and inclusive engagement for all students on and off campus.
Acknowledgement: We are grateful to the anonymous Reviewer for his/her helpful
comments which help us considerably improve this paper. We acknowledge with
thanks the valuable insights shared by our participants and the funding from the
Australian Research Council for this project.
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Annotated Copy (excluding authors' names and affiliations)
“I'm not like that, why treat me the same way?” Stereotyping international students
as ‘migration hunters’ and its impact on their learning, employability and
connectedness with the workplace
Abstract
A significant body of literature on international education examines the
experiences of international students in the host country. There is however a
critical lack of empirical work that investigates the dynamic and complex
positioning of international students within the current education-migration
nexus that prevails international education in countries such as Australia,
Canada and the UK. This paper addresses an important but under-researched
area of the education-migration landscape by examining how the stereotyping of
students as mere 'migration hunters' may impact their study and work
experiences. It draws on a four-year research project funded by the Australian
Research Council that includes more than 150 interviews and fieldwork in the
Australian vocational education context. Positioning theory is used as a
conceptual framework to analyse how generalising international students as
‘mere migration hunters’ has led to the disconnectedness, vulnerability and
marginalization of the group of international students participating in this
research.
Introduction
Transnational skill mobility and global competition for skilled human capital have
accelerated over the past few decades. To address the current labour and skill
shortages mainly due to ageing and fertility decline, recent policy efforts in countries
such as Australia, Canada and the UK lean more towards retaining international
student graduates from domestic universities rather than attracting migrants from offshore (Gribble & Blackmore, 2012; Hawthorne, 2013; Robertson, 2011). This policy
focus is driven by the common assumption about the advantage of international
students as potential migrants based on their domestically relevant educational
qualifications and skills, locally recognised credentials, familiarity with the host
culture and host-country language ability (Hawthorne, 2013). In Australia, promoting
the education-migration pathway has been perceived as the government win-win
policy. This policy capitalises on the lucrative education export market as
international education is the biggest service export industry generating 16.6 billion
dollar for the national economy in 2014 (Hare, 2015). At the same time, the policy
helps to attract and retain skilled locally trained human capital. This policy affects all
education sectors including higher education (HE), vocational education and training
(VET) and schools.
Around the world, there are approximately 4.5 million students pursuing overseas
study (OECD, 2014). VET was the fastest growing sector in the number of
international student enrolments in Australia between 2005 and 2009 and currently
ranks second behind the HE sector, despite the turbulence caused by the collapse of a
number of ‘shonky’ private colleges and changes to Australia’s skilled migration
1
policy. There are at present 149,785 international student enrolled in VET (AEI,
2015). The period 2009-2010 witnessed a crisis to the VET sector as a number of
VET private colleges actively marketed their courses as providing the pathway to
migration rather than the study opportunity and did not invest in ensuring a quality
education for international students (Marginson et al., 2010; Perkins, 2009; Tran,
2013). In 2010 the Australian government amended the General Skilled Migration
Scheme in ways that restricted courses popular with many international VET students,
emphasised high level qualifications, readjusted point allocation and required
independent skills testing of graduates. Maximum priority is given to applicants with
employer or regional sponsorship (DIAC, 2010). These policy changes have reduced
the link between vocational education and permanent residency (Tran & Nyland,
2011). The Centre for Population and Urban Research’s Immigration Overshoot
Report (CPUR, 2012) indicates that between a half of and two thirds of international
students returned to their countries of origin after graduation in 2011-2012 and the
rest remained in Australia on temporary visa, further study visa, tourist visa or
permanent residency visa.
The development of international education-migration pathway in VET over the past
decade has been associated with a sweeping generalisation of international VET
students as mere ‘migration hunters’ or ‘PR hunters’ 1 who do not have a genuine
interest in learning and accordingly colleges are seen as ‘migration factories’ or ‘PR
factories’ (Bass, 2006; Birrell et al. 2009; Birrell & Healy, 2010; Kinnaird, 2015).
However, little is known about how such labelling has impacted international
students’ learning and connectedness with the workplace and the broader community.
This paper aims to respond to this paucity in the literature by analysing the
detrimental effects of the stereotyping of international students as mere ‘migration
hunters’.
This paper emerges from a research project funded by the Australian Research
Council that examines the learning and engagement of international students within
the migration-education nexus. The research includes more than 150 interviews with
international students and teachers as well as fieldwork in 25 colleges in Australia.
Using positioning theory as a conceptual framework, the research shows that for the
international student participants in this research, a mere ‘PR hunter’ is an unwanted
and unjust transnational identity imposed on them. This fails to recognise their career
aspirations and multiple identities defined and redefined by their own subjectivity as
well as their interaction with transnational social spaces.
This paper begins with a discussion of the research on the education-migration nexus
that prevails international education in Australia. We then proceed to discuss the use
of positioning theory as a conceptual framework and the research design. The
subsequent section analyses the key themes emerging from the data including the
effects of the generalisation of international students as ‘PR hunters’ on teaching and
learning practices and student employability and connectedness with the workplace.
1
PR is the abbreviation of permanent residency commonly used in Australia
2
We conclude by addressing the implications for the institutional community to foster
a more inclusive environment for international students.
International students in the education-migration pathway
There is a significant body of research exploring the relationship between
international education and migration (Baas, 2006; Birrell & Perry, 2009; Hawthorne,
2013; Robertson, 2011, 2013; Tang et al., 2014; Valentin, 2014). These include the
nature and characteristics of the study-migration pathway (Hawthorne, 2013),
international students’ motivations for migration (Robertson, 2011, 2013), their future
aspirations, and their career and migration trajectories in the country of education
(Tang et al., 2014). Neilson (2009) points out the unintended consequences of the
education-migration nexus including the changing demographics of students seeking
PR, education providers’ conscious provision or expansion of courses which are given
advantage in PR pathways, and the adaptation of the marketing of courses to
prospective students. While VET pedagogy aims to promote equal opportunities and
access for all students and the inclusion of diversity, the marketing of courses
attached with PR advantages appears to be predominantly oriented towards students
as migration hunters rather than education for all. Robertson (2001, p.2207) argues
that ‘this all contributed to public backlash against migrants as undesirable subjects
but also contrastingly against the system as exploitive. International students were
thus simultaneously and contradictorily portrayed as opportunists and victims.’
The discourse around international VET positions international students as a needed
and undesired group at the same time. There seems to be a contradictory positioning
of international students in Australian nation-state from different actors: as a much
valued group by the institution versus an unwanted marginalised group in the
workplace/community. Even within the institutional discourse, there is a contradiction
in institutional policy and pedagogic reality with regard to the positioning of
international students. Institutional websites and policy documents represent them as
valuable members with regards to both their cultural and consumer capitals. However,
in reality, pedagogic practices mainly construct them as ‘the other’ and insufficient
pedagogic investment has been made to capitalise on their cultural backgrounds and
experiences to enrich the teaching and learning for all (Leask, 2009; Ryan, 2011; Tran
& Nguyen, 2015; Tran, 2011). In the media and public discourse, international
students are positioned mainly within the consumer frame and deficit model. For
example, the recent ABC Four Corners episode’s Degrees of Deception (2015)
construct international students as no more than victims, cheaters or migration
hunters. Nevertheless, Robertson (2011) rightly observes that Australia has not yet
developed nuanced understandings of the international student experiences in the
education-migration space. Thus this paper fills this gap in our existing knowledge by
analysing how the international students who participated in this research position
themselves and the impact of the social positioning on them within the educationmigration nexus.
3
Constructing international students in VET, especially who study hospitality subjects
as ‘PR hunters’, Birrell et al. (2009) claim international students are interested in
investing in cookery courses as a step stone to migration. Subsequently, Birrell and
Perry (2009) argue that since international students can potentially earn little if they
return to work in developing countries with a VET cooking credential, their
investment in Australian education must be to secure permanent residency. These
authors maintain ‘the overseas students were prepared to pay for this instruction
[cookery couse], so it was alleged, because it led to a permanent residence (PR) visa’
(Birrell et al., 2009:63). These authors’ assumption lumps all international VET
students into a homogenous group while ignoring the career aspirations and the
genuine desire to return and work in their home country of a number of international
students.
While works by Baas (2005, 2006) provide a useful account on the experiences of
Indian students who use education as an entrance to permanent residency in Australia,
it conveys the impression that the majority of Indian students, if not all, are PR
hunters. In particular, the author emphasises permanent residence as a ‘form of
compensation’ for an unsatisfactory education experience that Indian students are
exposed to in Australia. In contrast, based on large scale empirical research with
international students, Tran and Nyland’s (2011) study reveals the educationmigration culture, into which many international students have immersed, to some
extent, conditions and shapes their desire to migrate. Some international students did
not have the original intention to migrate but their growing awareness of this
migration-education nexus and their interaction with peers who are interested in
migration influences their decision to apply for permanent residency. Tran and
Nyland’s (2011) study further points out four main forms of the nexus between
overseas study and migration. The first category includes students who are motivated
to undertake international education with dual objectives to secure migration and to
acquire the skills associated with their chosen occupation. The second one regards
migration as a ‘second chance opportunity’, the third sees migration as the sole
ultimate objective of overseas study and the fourth has lost the intention to migrate
that they initially had (ibid., p.17).
Positioning theory as a conceptual framework to interpret the effects of
stereotyping international students as mere PR hunters
In this paper, Harré and van Langenhove’s (1999) positioning theory is used to
analyse how international students self-position and are other-positioned by related
actors as well as the conditions that shape these specific ways of positioning.
Positioning theory focuses on identifying aspects of dominant discourse rules and
conventions, rights, duties and obligations which are referred to as ‘the moral order’
in discursive practices (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999). This theory is a useful
conceptual tool to unpack students’ positions within the institutional structures and
related communities, and how they perceive to be positioned in a specific ways
(desirable or undesirable) by others in the discourse community. It allows an
exploration of whether the subject in positioning accepts, accommodates or rejects
dominant ways of constructing, viewing or making sense of a phenomenon and their
4
impacts. Harré et al. (2009, p.5) stress positioning theory is concerned with revealing
the explicit and implicit patterns of reasoning that are realised in the ways that people
act towards others.
Positioning theory indicates that when people engage in discourse as individuals or
members of a group, they take up a certain position (Davies & Harré, 1990; van
Langenhove & Harré, 1999). Hollway (1984, p.236) highlights ‘discourses make
available positions for subjects to take up. These positions are in relation to other
people.’ In this regard, conversations between individuals are statements of how
things appear to the subject: the discursive construction of personal stories makes a
person's actions intelligible and relatively determinate as social acts within which
certain members of the conversation have specific locations. Viewed this way,
international students, teachers, domestic/international peers and other members
operating in the students’ community are social actors whose ways of thinking and
acting can be made intelligible by examining the ways they take up positions in
conversations. In particular, Hollway (1984) indicates discourse is not limited to
conversations amongst individuals as discourse can take place in the minds of
individuals. Also, Harré and his colleagues (1999) argue that a distinctive feature of
positioning as a social act is that positions are fluid, dynamic and open to challenge.
Positions are understood as clusters of rights, duties and obligations (Harré & Slocum,
2003). Hence, the ways students and teachers position themselves and each other are
interrelated to their perceptions of their rights, duties and obligations within the moral
order of the institutional context. Van Langenhove and Harré (1999, p.23) contend
that 'the rights for self-positioning and other-positioning are unequally distributed and
not all situations allow for or call for an intentional positioning of the participants.'
To interpret the impact of generalising international students as mere PR hunters, we
use the following concepts of positioning: self-positioning, forced-self positioning,
positioning of others and re-positioning. Self-positioning arises when a person takes
on a particular stance and expresses his/her personal agency in order to achieve a
particular goal in discursive practice (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999, p.24). This
category is applied to interpret excerpts of interview data which are related to how
students or teachers take up a specific position or stance when discussing the effect of
the stereotyping on their practices. With regard to forced-self positioning, van
Langenhove and Harré (1999, p.26) propose that it is different from deliberate selfpositioning in that 'the initiative now lies with somebody else rather than the person
involved.’ In the case of this research, forced-self positioning is adopted to interpret
how the students position themselves in the ways they think they are required or
stereotyped by other actors. Other positioning is that one's intentional positioning of
oneself in a certain way can lead to the positioning of someone else in the correlative
position (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999). This category is used to interpret how
students or teachers position other involved parties through the ways they express
their own stance on an issue. Repositioning occurs when a person adopts a new
position as a result of previous experiences and discussions. This concept is used to
5
interpret how the participants might shift their stance due to external influences,
internal changes or previous experiences.
Adopting these frameworks of positioning theory, this paper focuses on the salient
themes arising from international students’ and teachers’ views about the impacts of
‘PR hunter’ stereotypes on pedagogy, teachers’ perspectives and students’
connectedness with the classroom and host community.
Research Design
This paper is derived from a four-year research project funded by the Australian
Research Council through the Discovery scheme. The research aims to examine
international VET students’ learning and engagement experiences within host
institutions as well as the broader community. It also examines teachers’ views and
adaptation of pedagogic work in teaching this cohort. The research draws on a
qualitative approach. It includes interviews with more than 150 international students
and staff and fieldwork conducted in dual-sector and VET institutions in three main
states of Australia: New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD) and Victoria (VIC).
After gaining the approval from the ethics committee at the University where the
researchers were based, the student participants were selected based on the broad
criteria that they are enrolled as an international student in either a public or private
VET institute and they volunteer to participate in the research. The teachers selected
for the research are those who are involved in teaching international students and are
willing to participate in the research. International student and teacher participants
were recruited through an invitation sent to the Director of International Program
from their institute who helped circulate the invitation among their international
students and teachers. Those who agreed to participate were asked to attend a face to
face interview which lasted between 30 to 60 minutes. The interviews were digitally
recorded and transcribed. Second interviews were also undertaken with a small
number of students who were willing to share with the chief investigator their
experiences and changes as they progressed through the course during the first six
months of their study. This paper focuses primarily on the semi-structured interview
data with 105 international students and 50 staff members.
The key questions used in the interview with international students include: What are
their purposes of undertaking the VET course? How do their purposes influence the
way they learn? What do they think about the ways their teachers teach international
students in VET? and Are there any stereotypes and generalisations that affect their
learning and engagement in the community? For teachers, the primary lines of inquiry
focus on how they perceive international students’ purposes of investing in VET
course, how these purposes might shape international students’ learning and
engagement and how they adapt their teaching to accommodate international
students’ study purposes and learning characteristics. The interview excerpts cited in
this paper arose mainly from these questions.
6
A small number of excerpts which are typical of the data set were used in the paper
due to the scope of the paper. The key themes on which this paper focuses and the
relevant quotes were identified through a thorough process of coding using NVivo
software, version 10. The researchers read the interview transcripts several times and
utilised NVIVO software to categorise the interview data. The preliminary analysis
was inductive and based on the themes and patterns that emerged from the coding.
Then positioning theory (Harré and van Langenhove, 1999) is used to interpret the
ways international students self-positioned and perceived how they were otherpositioned by their teachers and other actors in the broader community to whom they
relate. Italics are used to highlight some parts of the interview excerpts that contain
the key points conveyed by the participants. To protect the confidentiality of the
participants, their names and institutions are kept anonymous.
As explained in the above section, positioning theory (van Langenhove & Harré,
1999), especially its notions of right-duty, self-positioning, forced self-positioning
and other-positioning are used to interpret the interview accounts. The discussion of
the key findings in the next section uncovers uncomfortable realities about the
adverse effects of the positioning of international students as those who see migration
as the sole goal of overseas study on their learning and sense of belonging.
‘PR hunter’ stereotype and effects on teaching practices
Teachers’ commitments to students, commitments to teaching and their capacity to
enhance students’ connectedness with learning and workplaces are essential for
ensuring high quality educational practices. Yet, from the positioning of the students,
teachers and support staff participating in this research, teachers’ fulfilment of these
duties can be considerably undermined if their pedagogic practices are overridden by
the stigma attached to international students as ‘mere PR hunters’. The following
observations by the students in this study illuminate the repercussions of teachers’
other-positioning of international students as migration hunters on their classroom
interactions with international students and on the students’ self-esteem:
I felt that my contribution is not valued. That is because I am seen as someone
who comes here to take something from the system, like a PR [permanent
residency]. But I felt that they didn’t recognise that I want to be part of it and
contribute something [Crying]…. Or just treat it as if, you know, like you take
no interest in the class or even in the people around you. That really makes me
angry if I see that. But I feel I'm not like that, why treat me the same way [as
those who are only interested in migration, not learning]? (Indian Student,
Community welfare, Public College, VIC).
There is a lot of stigma that you’re doing the TAFE [Technical and Further
Education] course and getting residency. […] on the very first day the
Program Manager asked me, are you doing this for residency? […] it’s like
putting a label on me already you want to see me as someone who is after PR.
7
I feel that there is a stigma attached to it as if these students come here and
they do the course just for migration […] If you [teachers] treat us with
suspicion all the time and say, well you’re not really interested in learning,
you’re just here for the visa, then there's no help offered to us in finding
placements (Indian Student, Nursing, Public College, VIC)
In line with positioning theory, forced-self positioning is related to how students
position themselves in the ways they think they are essentialised or stereotyped by
other actors (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999). The above excerpts show that the
international student participants are forced-self positioned as migration hunters, and
such positioning contradicts with the multiple aspirations attached to the learner status
that they bring into the classroom. From these students’ viewpoint, their teachers’
other-positioning of international students is riddled with bias. The students from the
above excerpts believe that their teachers do not position international students as
genuine learners, opposite to how they position themselves with endeavours to be
engaged in the educational process and to make contributions to the wider
community. This is strongly expressed by the Indian student in the first interview
excerpt. Both of the students’ forced-self positioning conveys their disappointment
and indignation when all international VET students are automatically labelled as PR
hunters, and on this account, their genuine ambitions are ignored, their motivations
for learning are questioned and their identity is affronted. The students’ criticism is in
line with Tran and Nyland’s (2011) compelling empirical evidence which challenges
claims made by researchers such as Birrell and Perry (2009) that the only motive of
all international VET students is to chase after PR. According to Tran and Nyland
(2011), migration can be among the multiple purposes of overseas study that
individual students embrace, but this goal can complement their aspiration for
learning and for career advancement rather than contradicts them. Furthermore, the
two authors also assert permanent residency is not necessarily behind every
international student’s pursuit of VET as a number of international students undertake
overseas education with bona fide desire to return and to work in their home country.
The teacher and support staff respondents also concur with the students’ observations.
They contend that the stereotype can undermine teachers’ sense of responsibility and
take its toll on the teacher-student reciprocal educational experiences:
Yeah, unfortunately I think a lot of them [teachers] have given up. And so
there’s a lot of just pass them, just pass them, just pass them. I think there’s
significant latitude given to international students because they don’t care and
they are only interested in PR, the teacher doesn’t really care… Why should I
try to teach them in different ways if they don’t care about learning anyway?
So there seems to be a bit of a cease-fire where, well I’ll teach the minimum
requirements. So really what we’ve done is we’ve just slipped into
mediocrity… And I think the teachers just said, you know what? What’s the
point? I’m still getting paid my hourly rate. I’ll make it easier for everyone. So
we see more multiple-choice questions. We see things that are easier to mark
8
because hey, they don’t care. Why should I care? (Teacher, Hospitality
Management, Private College, VIC)
And some head teachers even been quite rude to students and turn students
away and say do other course, why don’t you do other course? That course is
higher point than my course [childcare]. […] Say things like “you may want to
consider studying another course that is more suited to your goal of getting
residency.”…Well this student came to me and the counsellor advised her to
see me, the student is really interested in studying childcare, and doing quite
well. She’s not the one that really just wants to get the residency or fill in the
time. (Support Staff, Public College, NSW)
These interview excerpts lend support to the student participants’ positioning of
themselves and of the teachers. In a similar vein with the students’ self-positioning
discussed above, the support staff’s other-positioning of international VET students
recognises their genuine interest in the subject and the heterogeneity of learning
motivations in this cohort of students, just like other cohorts of students. Nevertheless,
according to both the teacher and support staff’s other-positioning of the teachers,
these attributes of international students are not always appreciated by all VET
teaching staff. The teacher mentions three times in this brief interview excerpt that a
group of teachers hold a strong view that “they [international students] don’t care”
about learning. The support staff respondent also indicates that the able and ardent
student can be misjudged and mistreated by the teacher who misconstrues the
student’s interests and goals because of the PR hunter stereotype.
The adverse impact of this unjust perception inflicted on international VET students’
learning can be substantial. As remarked by the teacher, a number of his colleagues
have dropped their teaching motivations, expectations and sense of responsibility.
These teachers are deemed to consciously adopt the PR-hunter other-positioning of
the students as an excuse for becoming lenient and unconcerned with the students’
learning, and unmotivated in improving teaching quality. The support officer’s
reflection on the head teachers’ confronting attitude and treatment towards
international students reveals another inimical influence of teachers’ stereotypical
belief. When teachers choose to tag a PR hunter label on every international VET
student, they not only fail to perform their duty to shape and facilitate the students’
connectedness with learning; they also become an institutional hurdle that disconnects
the students with genuine motivation for learning.
These observations of teachers’ other-positioning and their pedagogic practices
resonate Nespor’s (1987) influential work on the importance of teachers’ beliefs on
teachers’ teaching practices. Beliefs, according to Nespor (1987, pp. 318-319), are
constituted by “existential presumption[s]” which are strongly personal, affective,
evaluative and can be different from reality. Although beliefs are not necessarily
evidence based and reliable, they exert a powerful influence on the holders’
behaviours and decisions (Nespor, 1987; Rokeach, 1968; Sigel, 1985). Teachers’
9
different types of beliefs, including those towards the learners, have been well
recognised to be imperative to teachers’ behaviours (Archer, 1999; Nespor, 1987;
Pettit, 2011; Thompson, 1992). Peregoy and Boyle (1997, cited in Pettit, 2011, p.124)
remark that in English language teaching, for example, if teachers hold unjustified
deficit beliefs towards learners, even when the teachers are well-intentioned,
discrimination might happen unconsciously. Given the conceptual parallel between
teachers’ ontological belief and teachers’ other-positioning of learners in light of
positioning theory (van Langenhove & Harré, 1999), theories about teachers’ beliefs
are helpful in shedding light on the research finding about the impingement of
teachers’ other-positioning of international students as PR hunters on their teaching
practices and their commitments to the students.
The data, especially the statement ‘What’s the point? I’m still getting paid my hourly
rate. I’ll make it easier for everyone’, reveals the structural conditions within which
VET teachers work and the social context of the stereotyping. VET is facing the
increasing casualised and intensified workforce aiming at cost reduction for VET
institutes (Productivity Commission 2011). VET teachers generally work in
precarious and vulnerable conditions. Within the private VET institutes, to which the
first interview excerpt above refers, most teachers involved in teaching international
students often work as casuals or on a short-term contract. Their job is not secure and
their contract mainly depends on the presence international students in their program
(Tran, 2013). According to Nakar (2013) and Guthrie (2010), sessional teachers,
which account for increasing proportions of the VET workforce, have limited access
to professional development and support including how to deal with the challenges
arising from changing student demographics. Therefore, these sociological conditions
bear on their attitudes to their work and their teaching of international students,
making them not invest seriously in their teaching, easily accept some common
stereotypes at the face value and adopt a ‘let it go’ attitude.
Other teachers indeed challenge the mind-set that if international students see
migration as the sole aim for their overseas study and are not intrinsically motivated
to learn, then there is no need for teachers to be concerned about the quality of
teaching and learning:
My: And do you think a lot of trainers would feel disappointed if they see
some of their students who are not engaged in learning and are only interested
in PR?
Lian: I do, but I see that as an excuse. Because I can easily that myself, I
could say look, I know you’re only here for PR and why should I bother? But
again, as I get back to the fact, I as a trainer of hospitality, it’s my
responsibility to basically give them all the benefits and demonstrate to them
what the benefits are. If they choose to take that in, that’s their issue not my
issue. My issue is to be there as a trainer and I think that if I take the attitude
of oh, you’re only here for PR, I’m not really concerned about you, well I’m
not doing my job. So I have a certain responsibility as a trainer to do that.
Look, it is hard and it’s frustrating to have students sit there that you know are
10
really not passionate about it but you have an obligation to the others that are.
(Teacher, Hospitality Management, Private College, VIC)
In light of positioning theory, the teacher in this interview positions teachers/trainers
as professionals who take cognizance of their responsibilities and maintain high
integrity in delivering the “job.” She concedes that students with low or no candid
interest in learning could be “hard and frustrating” hurdles to a teacher. Yet she
dismisses justifications for the teacher’ failure to fulfill their obligation on this
account. Teachers or trainers, according to her self-positioning, have no right to
compromise the education quality. Regardless of international students’ purpose of
investment in the course, it is obligatory for teachers to consistently enact their
responsibility as a teacher to optimise students’ learning, not only due to their sense of
professional duty, but more importantly, for the sake of those students who are
genuinely keen to learn. The teacher also comments on her approach to cultivating
students’ sense of belonging to learning by helping them gain understanding of the
“benefits” of the subject, guiding them towards a positive perception and more
nuanced understandings of the potential attached to the professional field that they are
studying. Such pedagogic belief in fulfilling their self-perceived responsibilities is the
manifestation of “their commitments to students and commitments to teaching”
(Firestone & Rosenblum, 1988, p.288). According to Firestone and Rosenblum
(1988), the synergy of these two dimensions of teachers’ commitments has important
implications for teachers’ emotional care for students, high expectations for students’
achievements and pedagogical interest.
Akin to the teacher’s opinion, the student participants’ other-positioning of the
teachers also indicates teachers’ duties to nurture students’ connectedness with
learning:
And I think if you [teachers] want someone to genuinely do the course or
genuinely be part of your community then it’s your job to help them do that.
So maybe help them find a good placement, help them under systems, help
them learn. […] I think well if you [teachers] want, if you really want to train
students then you have to be interested in teaching. It’s not just the student that
has to be interested in learning with. It works both ways. (Indian Student,
Nursing, Public College, VIC)
[T]he teachers can find more pathways to the workplace because cookery
you've got to learn it from the industry, school is also important but you also
have got to be in a good restaurant to learn all the good stuffs. There can be
many levels of finding jobs, they can, at least, provide us a list of fine
restaurants in the city or in the area around or at least they can give us with
reference letter or something like that so that we can get it in our resume. And
more for the counselling about the job and also the pay/wage. (Korean
Student, Cookery, Public College, NSW)
11
Both of the interviewees identify teachers’ important responsibility to support VET
students to gain access to and to learn in work placements, which are considered an
integral component of VET programs. This other-positioning of teachers’ professional
responsibility resonates with the dominant trend in the current VET teaching and
learning practice that focuses on “closer engagement in work-based learning” (Hillier,
2009, p.6). It is also well reflected in previous discussions of VET teachers’ roles,
which typically include teachers’ facilitation of students’ ‘empirical learning’ in the
workplace (Attwell, 1999, p.192).
The Indian student in the above interview excerpt broadly points out two essential
aspects of teachers’ responsibilities in fostering international students’ sense of
belonging. She first underlines teachers’ transformative agency in cultivating
students’ genuine inquisitiveness about learning, and that in order to do so, it is
imperative that teachers be motivated about their own teaching. In addition, she
positions teachers as the bridge that makes international students more connected to
learning, the workplace and the host community. The articulation of teachers’
responsibility towards international students’ broadest sense of connectedness as an
educational outcome echoes Tran’s and Nguyen’s (2015, p.14) accentuation of
“teaching as cosmopolitan work” that aims to foster students’ meaningful engagement
with “local and global diversity.” Together with the teacher’s self-positioning, the
student participants’ other-positioning of the teachers identifies the following
responsibilities of VET teachers: teachers are duty bound to maintain integrity and
commitment to their students and their teaching job so that they are able to nurture
students’ connectedness with learning and to foster their engagement with the
workplace as well as the wider community.
Impact on international students’ employability and connectedness with the
workplace: “[E]mployers don’t want to employ us”
Work-based learning or learning in the workplace has been recognised as an essential
dimension of vocational education and training (Attwell, 1999; Hillier, 2009).
Research evidence suggests that the practice of linking international students to
workplace opportunities varies among different VET institutes (Tran, 2013). For
some institutes, such responsibility resides with the teachers or international students
themselves while for others, it is an institutional responsibility. Nevertheless,
international students’ vocational experience and their connectedness with the
workplace are vulnerable to discrimination. International students are portrayed as ‘an
exploited invisible workforce’ (Nyland et al, 2009). While this victimisation happens
when the students are already employed, this research also shows that international
VET students in this study are depicted as an undesirable workforce because of the
PR-hunter stereotype:
Yeah, if you go for the job of some places, they think that Indians are just for
the permanent residence. But not everyone is like that… employers don’t want
to employ us… Saying they are students but they just don't want to study and
12
develop the skills, they just want to get PR. If so many persons in the industry
and the teachers also saying that Indian students are not attempting as hard as
other nationalities. There are some students, Indian students, who are not
studying hard or they're just after the PR or the job. So but not everyone is the
same. (Indian Student, Cookery, Public College, QLD)
Some employers are scared. They're scared that if I employ this person, all
they're really going to do is want me to sign them off for PR. Then as soon as I
sign them off for PR, they're gone. And that has happened in some cases. He
signs the paper one day and the person's gone the next day. Is it going to upset
my customers if I have too many overseas workers? And that can happen. I've
got an employer out there that says, ‘I would like to take on a Vietnamese
baker but my customers would not allow that. So that would affect my
business so I can't choose to do that.’ (Teacher, Bakery, Public College, VIC)
These interview excerpts enunciate how the PR hunter stereotype diminishes the
opportunities for international VET students to be employed in an Australian
workplace. In light of positioning theory, international students are often otherpositioned by both local employers and teachers as opportunistic PR hunters who lack
commitment, diligence and genuine aspirations to learn and develop professionally.
The Indian cookery student’ reflection mirrors Bass’s (2005, 2006) observation that
Indian students are pervasively viewed as PR schemers, which is disproved by the
student’s self-positioning. The teacher’s other-positioning substantiates the reported
adversity against international students’ employability, adding that not only
employers, but also the customers, are sceptical and discriminatory against
international students.
This finding reveals that barriers to international students’ participation in the local
workplace are complicated and accumulate from more than one source. While
employers’ hesitation is evident, teachers’ role in assisting their students and lifting
the stigma appears to be missing. Based on the Indian student’s other-positioning,
teachers’ discriminating judgments about Indian students exacerbate the prejudice
against this ethnic group in the local industry. In the case of a Vietnamese bakery
student who was turned down because of the customers’ disapproval of foreign
workers as reflected in the above excerpt, outright racism from the host community
intensifies social impediment on international students’ engagement in the local
workplace. This multiplicity of obstacles stymies those international students’ access
to a meaningful vocational experience and impinges on the sense of belonging that
international students in this research seek to build up with the host society.
The sociological context also shapes employers’ attitude towards international
students and explains employers’ inclination to take a cautious approach to employing
international students. Both the student’ self-positioning and teachers’ otherpositioning of international students concede the fact that there are international
students who deploy tactics to take advantage of local employers for their PR hunt.
Reporting on the social conditions of employing international students, Tran’s (2013)
13
research also found that some employers are reluctant to take international students
because they had prior experience with international students who left the
organisation right after getting the work experience certificate for migration purpose,
which may cause disruption to the workplace. Employers’ reluctance might stem from
the assumption that international students may leave the country after their graduation
(Patrick et al., 2008). Moreover, employers’ uncertainty about international students’
visa regulations and work right in the host country is another structural barrier to their
acceptance of international students into the workplace. Another social condition that
affects employers’ attitude is the recent media reports on how international students
have been discriminated against and exploited at the workplace, which makes
employers cautious about being caught with potential troubles in employing
international students (Tran, 2013).
However, as the student participant comments “not everyone is like that […] not
everyone is the same,” it is unfair to project every international student with identical
and predictable motivations and behaviours of migration hunters. Similar to this
observation, other students in this study also express their frustration over the
automatic assumption that international VET students are only after PR:
One day in the kitchen, one of the guys asked me what does Stacy really wants
to do? I mean like do you think this is not the thing that I really want to do?
He just assumes that I am doing this for PR and anything like that. […] So it’s
kind of frustrating to be seen in those kinds of standard that if you are not a
resident, and you are studying cookery so you must be after PR. You must only
for PR. So it is kind of frustrating (Korean Student, Cookery, TAFE, NSW)
My: And what did you feel when people stereotype you and put you under
the umbrella of only after PR?
Salina: I feel very bad, yeah, I feel very bad.
My: Yes why?
Salina: Some of them, they are only here for PR so their main aim is not to
complete their studies, nothing. They just want PR first. But it's not true [for
all]. (Indian Student, Welfare Service, Private College, QLD)
These students’ criticism once again refutes the overgeneralisation made by some
teachers, employers and other members in the community that the only motive for
international students studying VET in Australia is a pathway to permanent residency.
This stereotypical assumption overlooks the range of purposes that underpin the
student participants’ investment in vocational education overseas. It is worthwhile
reaffirming that the nexus between migration and learning, as Tran and Nyland (2011)
explain, is confined to not only the sole intention to migrate but also to professional
advancement, professional self-formation and dual objectives to secure migration and
vocational skill advancement. When migration is perceived to be the motivation for
the students’ international education, it should not be understood simplistically as
“only migration, no study” mind-set.
14
Conclusion
This research shows that a mere ‘PR hunter’ is an unwanted and unjust transnational
identity imposed on the international VET students participating in this study. Firstly,
despite the fact that a group of international students see migration as the sole and
ultimate goal of their overseas study, essentialising all international students as mere
‘PR hunters’ is unjust as this stigma might lead to adverse impact on the teaching of
the whole international student cohort and on their integration into various aspects of
the host country. It can provide an excuse for teachers and institutions to shy away
from investing on improving the quality of education for this group. Research
evidence indicates that even if international students are primarily driven by the desire
to secure PR, it does not mean that they will be demotivated or poor students or
workers. Nor does it mean that they deserve of poor treatment and low quality of
education, notwithstanding the fact that using education as a stepping stone to PR is a
legal pathway. Secondly, this stereotype fails to capture the diverse and nuanced
identities and future aspirations of the international student participants as shown in
this research. The desire for migration does not necessarily exclude the motivation to
learn. The deficit ontological belief inflicts prejudicial restrictions on the student
participants’ ability to pursue their genuine endeavours and provokes negative
emotions and perception towards the host community.
As teachers are involved in both institutional and work placement experiences of VET
students, evidently teachers’ role in shaping or shattering the stereotype against
international VET students is critical. By highlighting the role of teachers in fostering
or inhibiting international students’ sense of connectedness, this research provides a
deeper insight into the current discussion on the range of factors influencing
international students’ connectedness, particularly those related to the institutional
contexts documented by Leask (2009). Teachers, specifically teachers’ ontological
beliefs about international students and their learning, exert a paramount impact on
students’ connectedness to learning and their opportunity to connect with the
workplace and the outside community. Teachers’ positive beliefs about students are
able to bring out a positive influence on the students’ educational experiences, ergo
on their connectedness. Vice versa, teachers’ biased perception of international
students can impinge on their commitments to the students and adversely reshape
their pedagogical approaches.
Institutions should not simply reproduce the social injustice already inscribed on
international students in the workplace or in the community. In order to optimise
international students’ learning and foster their sense of belonging, it is crucial that
VET teachers acknowledge the heterogeneity and complexity of the international
student cohort, instil confidence and positiveness in their beliefs about the students’
aspirations and motivations, and proactively exercise their agency in eliminating the
unjust stereotype. Such positive changes in teachers’ beliefs and attitudes depend on
their personal dispositions, as well as on various experiential and educational
conditions (Garmon, 2004) which are provided to help teachers foster their beliefs
about diversity and their capacity to change social and cultural stereotypes. The
15
plethora of research in intercultural education of pre-service teachers, for example,
has indicated the possible correlation between teacher candidates' engagement in
these programs and the development of their multicultural awareness, knowledge and
skills for teaching culturally diverse classrooms (Akiba, 2011; Capella-Santana, 2003;
Downey & Cobbs, 2007; Pattnaik, 1997; Tran, Young & Di Lella, 1994). Of great
significance are institutional commitments to providing well-structured, well-timed
and well-thought programs conducive to teachers’ beliefs and capacity to work with
multicultural student cohorts and work towards changing cultural and racial
stereotypes (Akiba, 2011; Breault, 1995; Lanas, 2014; Mills, 2008). In addition,
institutions should provide accessible conditions to support international students in
reporting and coping with stereotypical treatments, as well as to facilitate meaningful
and inclusive engagement for all students on and off campus.
Acknowledgement: We are grateful to the anonymous Reviewer for his/her helpful
comments which help us considerably improve this paper. We acknowledge with
thanks the valuable insights shared by our participants and the funding from the
Australian Research Council for this project.
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