**2. Literature review**

#### **2.1 Students in the context of higher education**

International students are encouraged to study in universities globally. They bring many benefits to institutions—from intercultural exchange to revenue from higher tuition and other fees [9]. Universities pride themselves on internationalizing education, providing global perspectives, and enriching campuses in many countries. At the same time, even though universities benefit from the internationalization of education both in terms of the knowledge and unique experiences that students bring as well as in terms of marketing, "international students" are ascribed a label that affects how they are viewed and positioned in the educational context. This label of "international student" has been problematized [9, 10] around the perception that the term implies homogeneity [11] within the group for the otherization [12] and, thus, maintains a deficit model [13] viewing students not only as different but, therefore, less than. This categorization is critiqued because universities use it to label students based on their visa status. However, this process has implications for how students are perceived. These assumptions about students include deficit language proficiency, academic literacy, different cultural values, beliefs, etc. that place international students as not fitting within the educational context. These assumptions then inspire the expectation that, regardless of the benefits for the university, students should adjust to the educational context unilaterally [14, 15].

On the other hand, universities are already privileging the students by accepting them and imposing knowledge, so there is little space for any relational approach, negotiating needs, or adjustment from the institutions. It is not surprising that research on international students' experiences, incorporating students' voices, and leadership practices that honor these experiences and voices are only recently starting to emerge. Page and Chanboun [9] highlight how, based on the fact that universities recruit international students for intercultural exchange, there is an assumption that international students seek to socialize and learn more about the host culture. This assumption appears in many studies without any evidence. Based on this assumption, much of the research on international students focuses on students' participation and socialization with host students. Page and Chanboun [9] state that "Once we realise that the students themselves may have different goals than those of the educational institutions, then their lack of integration with the host nationals ceases to be seen as a failure state" (p. 880).

Page and Chanboun [9] also point out that policy making, curriculum, and even research about international students fail to include students' voices in the conversation about them and their needs. This disregards their perspective and dehumanizes them ignoring that every student brings a unique background with experiences, expectations, needs, values, strengths, and knowledge. As a result, diversity is disregarded promoting discrimination and, with it, coloniality. Discussions such as these provide the impetus for more leadership research in this understudied field. Twentyfirst-century leadership practices must be informed in such a way as to advocate for rather than undermine students who come from international locations in the world.

Jones [10] calls for problematization and reimagining of the categories assigned to students suggesting a framework of the various factors contributing to every student's experiences. She argues that the dichotomy does not serve anyone because students are influenced by various factors, making them unique. Heng [11] similarly argues for addressing the heterogeneity within student populations by policy makers. We understand that the distinction may not be erroneous or stems from a lack of understanding of international students. Often, absences or silences reveal a lot about bias. For instance, research on academic literacy, the knowledge of discipline-specific language and genres, focuses on participants for whom, just like for the second author of this chapter, English is an additional language [16–18] and ignores the needs of domestic or native-speaking students. The gap may indicate that students are expected to require more training in academic literacy even though, as mentioned above, academic literacy has more to do with discipline-specific skills than language proficiency. In Canadian educational settings, this view of low language proficiency as an indicator of low academic literacy seems common. For example, EAL students would usually be admitted to educational programs based on standardized language test scores, such as IELTS, iTEP, or TOEFL, even though these tests' effectiveness has been questioned and critiqued [19, 20]. If scores are insufficient for admission, meaning that students are believed to lack language proficiency, EAL students may often be required to take additional courses. These distinctions exist, though challenged as detrimental to student learning and marginalizing. They are built on the coloniality inherent in higher education.
