Interrogating 'imagined' communities : exploring the impact of international students in local schools

This paper suggests new directions understanding the impact of international students in schools. It is concerned with the ways that community representatives discuss these students and their impact on the community of the school. Recent literatures describe communities such as those of schools as ones of perception and materiality whereby some are included differently than others. Discourses such as multiculturalism and monoculturalism, which have traditionally shaped these discussions about community relations, have always been ambivalent. They take on new forms as local/global interaction, and the individualistic and market-driven changes that lead to the arrival of international students have consequences for the everyday lives of school community members. These need to be investigated if the location of international students in local school communities is to be properly described and interrogated.