International Students Attending Canadian Universities: Their Experiences with Housing, Finances, and Other Issues

Abstract

Les universités recrutent des étudiants étrangers pour plusieurs raisons : amélioration de leurs relations internationales et de leur réputation, augmentation du nombre d'inscriptions et génération de revenus. Quoique ces étudiants connaissent des difficultés particulières liées à leur situation d'étrangers, aucune étude ni aucun rapport n'existent sur le sujet. Nous présentons ici les résultats d'un sondage et des entrevues avec des étudiants étrangers diplômés, des membres du personnel de l'université et des prestataires de service aux étudiants. Les étudiants ont mentionné leurs difficultés à trouver un logement convenable à prix abordable, à dégager des revenus suffisants et à s'intégrer à leur nouvelle université et à la société. Le personnel administratif a décrit les limites de l'aide qu'il pouvait fournir. Les deux groupes ont apporté diverses suggestions pour résoudre ces questions pécuniaires et résidentielle. Cette étude fait partie d'un projet de recherche plus vaste portant sur le logement et ses enjeux connexes pour les étudiants post-secondaires d'une ville de l'Ouest canadien.

For structural changes at personal, group, organizational, community, and societal levels ([Giddens], 1984), student-oriented actions are easier to facilitate than organizational or higher-level changes, although the latter are equally important (Pilote & Bena- bdeljalil, 2007). An agency worker stressed that students must make their needs known. However, one described a student wanting to share her story with a supervisor but not wanting pity. An agency worker described trying to reduce the stigma of asking for help: "Pride is such a big thing with these folks-Nobody wants to say, as an adult, . . . I can't feed my family." On the other hand, a student reported, "Maybe I'm grown up enough I don't really care what people think about me." Another described doing "wrong things" to get by. Many participants described inconsistency and unpredictability in responses students could expect to requests for help, complicating the task of creating and modifying existing structures based on experience (Giddens, 1984).

Some participants considered responsibility to be shared. A faculty member stated, "Once we take them on, then they're part of the family," and a student executive member considered that economics should not be a barrier to education. On the other hand, a service provider differentiated between students who "made the choice to come here and be chronically underfunded" and "retention of the fourth-year student . . . because they've had an extenuating circumstance." An agency worker suggested increasing bursaries for students with "extenuating circumstances" such as currency fluctuations or a disaster in their home country and suggested individual assistance and coordination between services rather than a general program. This approach would not, however, address the situation of a student described by a participant as "chronically underfunded." The above suggestions on shared responsibilities and collective effort to help international students with their housing issues are system integration strategies, defined by Giddens (1984) as "reciprocity between actors or collectivities across extended time-space" (p. 28).