Racism in Australian education exports: a Critical Discourse Analysis of one official policy

Abstract

Over the past two decades, increasing numbers of overseas students have come to Australia. In 2000, there were 153,372 international students enrolled in Australia (DEST, 2001). And these overseas students generated $3.7 billion for the Australian economy (AEI, 2000). Exporting education has played a major part of Australian services trade, especially in Asia, from which the majority of overseas students originate. In 2002, China first surpassed Malaysia in student numbers studying in the Australian tertiary education system (AVCC, 2005) and became the biggest export country of the Australian education sector. By accepting increasing numbers of overseas students, Australia has become more widely recognised in the arena of international education, and is regarded as a safe, friendly study destination with high quality courses, said by Mr. Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs (2005). However, there are still some latent superior sentiments and attitudes resonating beneath the surface of this "friendly study destination" in the predominant "white" society. This paper aims to probe for ideological construction of racism imbricated within the structure of an official DIMIA (Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs) document. This research focuses on an official policy relating to assessment levels in terms of financial proof for the process of overseas student applications for Australian education. The analysis adheres to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), employed by Van Dijk, Dairclough and Foucault et al. The paper is undertaken in two stages. The first, a general characterization of Australian education export discourse, reveals different policy evidence financial proof for students from different countries. The second in followed by a critical analysis of this policy based on its language used and a comparative analysis between this policy and those of other western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, France and Spain, which surfaces evidence of a racist ideology manifest in an asymmetrical power discourse in Australia between the (white) law-makers and overseas students from developing countries. The study concludes with a discussion regarding generalization issue in this policy and its implication in a society as a way to unravel the way in which racial prejudice is still imbricated within friendly educational discourse of Australia.