The internationalisation process: an opportunity for meaningful intercultural interaction or segregation in one UK university?

Abstract

This research was prompted by a perceived lack of meaningful interaction between home and international students in one UK university that has a long history of internationalisation. The study sits within an interpretative paradigm, and it explores the perceptions and experiences of academics and home students. Five focus groups were held with undergraduate home students, and 19 interviews were carried out with academics, 10 interviews with home students and 2 with recent graduates. Home students report feeling that international students have a group identity from which they are excluded. This sense of exclusion and their perceptions of being marginalised in comparison to their international peers appear to lie at the heart of a lack of mixing on campus. These findings imply that academics and institutions can only bring about meaningful intercultural interaction when the different groups of students come to realise that they have shared goals and equal status, with a learning environment that embraces who they are and who they are becoming.