Disconnected pedagogies: Experiences of international students in higher education

Discourses of widening participation and inclusion in higher education run parallel to aggressive marketing to recruit international students. While institutions are increasingly reliant on fee-paying students, many institutional, pedagogical and curriculum practices remain largely unaltered by the significant changes in the number of international students in higher education classrooms. International students bring rich and varied prior experiences of learning–only to find that many capabilities and attitudes that wrought success at home are undervalued, and even risky, in the Australian context which seems to be predicated on uniformity rather than diversity. This paper reports on a local study of the prior learning experiences of first year undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Indian subcontinent. It shows that, for many, there is a mismatch between their home country academic practices and capabilities, and their experience of what is valued and rewarded in their first year of study. Further, the study illustrates the personal dislocation felt by many of these previously successful students and reminds us that proficiency in English language alone is insufficient for tertiary success.