Challenges of South Asian and Chinese International Students: Becoming Anchored in Networks of Support

When coming to Canada to pursue post-secondary education, international students experience academic, financial, employment, and social and emotional challenges. Drawing on social network studies and studies of social anchoring, twenty-three in-depth interviews with South Asian and Chinese international students reveal the ways they navigate these issues in their post-secondary school environments. We find that international students work hard to establish social networks by making new connections at school, and students turn to their institutional networks for assistance. However, institutional networks alone are inadequate, and international students must also find support and advice through their family and community networks. We conclude that having strong institutional, family, and community networks are crucial to the social anchoring of international students in Canadian society. Social networks mitigate the challenges that international students encounter as they build their futures through post-secondary education.