Research reveals that even when universities can point to strategies on helping international students with mental health needs individuals are generally on their own.
Michelle Peterie (Uni Sydney) and colleagues* investigated universities to find that when they do have support strategies, they frame mental ill-health as a problem for individuals rather than a consequence of “dispersed issues,” such as “housing insecurity, workforce exploitation, academic stress and “precarious belonging.” And the government does not require them to do anything more.
To ascertain what the 37 public universities do on international students’ mental ill-health the authors reviewed all their websites.
They found 17 institutions with “no identified public mental health strategies,” at all including international education giant Uni Melbourne. Nine have public mental health strategies but with no international-related content. Eight had “superficial” international coverage.
“While some universities may have had such strategies internally available, this lack of transparent institutional action is notable, suggesting a weaker public commitment to international students’ mental health. Accountability is diminished when strategies are not available for public scrutiny,” Dr Peterie and colleagues write.
Only three have substantial content for international students, Central Queensland U, Uni Sydney and Victoria U.
The authors analysed their policies, to find, “at least some acknowledgement … that the challenges international students face in Australia are often not of their own making, or, at a minimum, do not exclusively arise from individual vulnerabilities.”
However, they all, “framed mental ill-health as a problem that could and should be managed (at least in part) at the individual level.”
And the three ducked the university’s role in problems people were having. “a noticeable silence across all strategies concerned the role of exploitative recruitment processes in contributing to academic stress. … While all strategies underlined the need to reduce pressure on students struggling with the demands of their courses, none questioned whether their own pursuit of international student “market share” was setting some students up to fail.”
Overall, the authors argue, the focus on individuals dealing with difficulties, “is consistent with the neoliberal logics that structure the contemporary university. It does not, however, sit comfortably with social science understandings of how health and well-being are produced and unravelled.”
Which means they are ducking responsibilities, “While universities may be charged with providing basic resources—such as green spaces, nutritious food and housing information—to enable student–consumers to pursue health and self-fulfilment, more fundamental questions about universities’ responsibilities vis-à-vis combatting exploitation, racism and poverty (among other issues) remain largely unacknowledged and unaddressed within these policies.”
Michelle Peterie, Gaby Ramia, Alex Broom, Isabella Choi, Leah Williams Veazey (Uni Sydney) and Matthew Brett (Deakin U). “‘You’re on your own, kid’: A critical analysis of Australian universities’ international student mental health strategies,” Australian Journal of Social Issues, July 2, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajs4.349 HERE
