Abstract

Hand-in-hand with the continuing drive to recruit international students to Western universities goes an interest in student engagement. However, it is often unclear exactly what is meant by engagement. This book goes beyond the policy rhetoric to provide a practice-based explication of international student engagement and its enabling institutional conditions. By utilising a social practice conceptual model, the book explains the multiple dimensions of engagement that are often conflated in policy: the antecedents to engagement, the actions of engaging, and the achievements and outcomes of engagement. As a result, the book is able to address issues such as how English comes to matter in international student academic practice; the teaching and assessment approaches that promote international student engagement; and the metacognitive, cognitive and affective strategies that international students use to achieve academic and personal transformation.

Despite an extended history of international education, questions persist about how to educate international students. This timely book provides a much-needed positive exemplar that is richly contextualised, while foregrounding international students’ experiences in higher education. It is a clear, accessible account with implications for practice, policy and research relating to international students.

In this deeply-realized study Margaret Kettle helps us to understand what living in an interconnected and interdependent world means in higher education. This book encourages us to be brave and take risks, open up to radically new learning and more plural identities, and never stop looking for common ground with ‘the other’ who is also ourselves.

Margaret Kettle is an academic and researcher in TESOL, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

The book is relevant in times of the hyper-marketing of international higher education around the world. It’s ideal for international education policy makers, provides solid theory for researchers interested in international student experience, as well as being practical for lecturers and others interested in transforming international student experience into a success.