Governing Asian international students: the policy and practice of essentialising ‘critical thinking’

Migration flows have shaped Australian higher education since the colonial era. In the last two decades, Asian mobility has literally changed the face of Australian campuses. Government policies and university regulations have, paradoxically, moved to reinforce a Western-centric curriculum and pedagogy. This paper investigates this paradox by examining how Asian international students in Australia are governed by a homogenised educational process via a regulatory state that is underpinned by both neoliberal and post-colonial ideologies. The paper argues that ‘critical thinking’ is used both as a totem pole to attract Asian students and a governmental yardstick to measure their academic performance.