Subjects of Western Education - Discursive Practices in Western Postgraduate Studies and the Construction of International Student Subjectivities

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Elsa

Focuses on discursive practices in postgraduate research as key mechanisms that shape international student subjectivities in Australian universities. Analyzes how supervision practices develop within internationalisation, globalisation, and resistance, particularly under pressures from globalising frameworks. Critically questions the privileging of Western custom and tradition in supervision and proposes supervision as intentional, systematic intervention informed by literature on cultural relations, knowledge production, and student resistance within power-laden supervisor-supervisee protocols.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Discursive practices and international student subjectivities

Globalisation, cultural practice, and supervisory protocols

Poststructuralist frameworks: power, regimes of truth, subjectivity

Normalisation, marginalisation, and resistance

Subjects of Western Education: Discursive Practices in Western Postgraduate Studies and the Construction of International Student Subjectivities Deirdre Barron Swinburne University of Technology Margaret Zeegers University of Ballarat Abstract This paper focuses on discursive practices of postgraduate research as a crucial element in constructs of international student subjectivities when they undertake postgraduate studies in Australian universities. As such, it focuses on a discursive field emerging within domains of internationalisation, globalisation, and resistance. It examines processes and protocols in a number of Australian universities’postgraduate divisions’ practices in the conduct of postgraduate supervision, in the context of increasing pressures towards internationalisation within frameworks of globalising influences. It takes issue with Western custom and tradition as privileged within the field of supervision of postgraduate research studies and suggests a model of postgraduate research supervision as intentional and systematic intervention, based on literature deriving from research in postgraduate supervision which acknowledges the problematic natures of cultural relationships as to teaching and learning and knowledge production, and student resistances within these fields. In doing so, it examines issues of discursive practices and the problematic natures of power relationships in supervisor-supervisee protocols and possibilities suggested by alternative models of postgraduate supervision of international students. The Australian Educational Researcher, Volume 33, Number 2, August 2006 •77 DEIRDRE BARRON AND MARGARET ZEEGERS Postgraduate Teaching and Supervision of International Students The following is part of a press release (Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs 2003): Overseas student numbers in Australia are at their highest level ever. There has been a twelve percent increase in the number of overseas students entering Australia in the last financial year. Overseas students made a significant contribution to Australia both socially and economically, creating jobs and producing revenue. In total, my department granted 109,610 offshore student visas for the 2002-03 Program Year, compared with 97,650 offshore visas in the previous year (September 9) . Given this state of affairs, we argue that consideration of its implications for international higher degree by research students is an important one for Australian universities. This paper is premised on the notion that the discourses that shape the ways supervision of international students is viewed only partially draws on discourses of globalisation. Current thinking in the social sciences is consistent in its attitude to globalisation as contributing to the shaping of the contemporary world. Inmost accounts of globalisation there is an emphasis on economic imperatives, while those of scholars such as Lash and Urry (1994) and Harloe, Pickvance and Urry (1990) highlight the effects of globalisation on cultural practice. In this paper we take up understandings of globalisation of cultural practices as they pertain to supervisory practices of students studying for a research degree in a country that is not their country of citizenship. These students are usually categorised as international students, and we have framed our discussion of the issues pertaining to these students in terms of poststructuralist theorising with conceptualisations of discursive practice, subjectivities, silences and resistance to inform our discussion (Foucault 1973, 1974, 1976, 1980a, 1980b) . Poststructuralist theorising analyses power relations in terms of discursivity. This is based on an argument drawn from Foucault’s (1980a) suggestion of ‘regimes of truth’, that is, that discourses organise our perceptions, our ways of knowing, making somethings visible and others invisible, some things true and others false. Discours

FAQs

How does the paper link postgraduate supervision to international student subjectivities?

It treats discursive practices in postgraduate research supervision as crucial constructs that shape how international students understand themselves and their positioning while studying in Australian universities.

What critique does the paper make of Western tradition in supervision?

It questions Western custom and tradition as privileged within supervision practices, arguing this creates problematic cultural power dynamics and marginalises students.

Which theoretical approach guides the analysis of power and discourse?

The paper uses poststructuralist theorising and Foucauldian ideas such as discursive power, regimes of truth, and how subjectivities are produced through institutionalised ways of speaking and knowing.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Elsa