"I'd Say it's Kind of Unique in a Way": The Development of an Intercultural Student Relationship

Abstract

This article tracks the emergence, maintenance, and evolution of a positive intercultural relationship between a multilingual international student from Vietnam and a monolingual local Australian student in their first year at university. The literature overwhelmingly suggests that in institutions where English is the language of instruction, monolingual local students rarely mix with international students who are not fully proficient in English. This dyad thus provided fertile ground for exploring the development of an unusual intercultural student relationship. Narrative analysis explores the extent to which individual agency and the institutional environment coshaped this relationship over time and in various contexts. In the context of the internationalization of the tertiary education sphere, this study offers a prototypical case highlighting affordances and constraints that may influence the development of productive and amicable intercultural relationships on diverse university campuses. © 2013 Nuffic.