Internationalization and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Ontario Colleges: A Comparative Case Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
For the past several years, there has been a marked interest in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) at Canadian post-secondary institutions as well as a renewed and changed focus on internationalization, and across the Ontario college system, all 24 public colleges express commitments to both EDI and internationalization. In an environment of continued declines in public funding, colleges have capitalized on federally and provincially facilitated opportunities to enroll significant numbers of high-tuition-fee paying international students to remain financially viable. However, in aligning with this neoliberal interpretation of internationalization, post-secondary institutions may also be subverting the humanity of individuals and perpetuating neoliberal precepts. This is in contrast to the values and aims of EDI, and can be seen to be contradictory, though both logics exist within the same institution. As such, colleges are experiencing institutional complexity. In this thesis, I study institutional complexity within Ontario colleges with specific reference to the existence of a neoliberal, competition-based interpretation of internationalization as articulated in federal, provincial and institutional strategies and activities, alongside initiatives designed to centre equity, diversity and inclusion efforts. While Ontario colleges are required to navigate the competing and seemingly incompatible logics of internationalization and EDI in a neoliberal environment, this study helps to understand how Ontario colleges are responding to these two logics. This case study research draws extensively on interviews with nineteen leaders and practitioners at four Ontario colleges and is supported by analysis of institutional, federal and provincial documents, categorizing responses. I find that institutional responses are highly contextual, that there is alignment between international student growth and EDI, and that institutions attempt to dissociate from negative discourses of internationalization. Structurally, the colleges have primarily responded by compartmentalizing EDI and internationalization, with one exception where these initiatives have been blended. Examining organizational responses at four Ontario colleges through case studies, this research study contributes to our understanding of institutional complexity, specifically how internationalization and EDI are implemented and the differences between these two institutional logics in structures and strategies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.033 | 0.011 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".