International student security in Australia with the focus on loneliness problem

The research used data from interviews with 200 international students enrolled at nine universities in Australia and a study of legal and regulatory documents to investigate the social and economic security of international students in Australia. The paper focuses on the loneliness issues of international students. It was found that two thirds of the students had experienced problems of loneliness and/or isolation, especially in the early months. The students experience both personal loneliness due to loss of contact with families and social loneliness due to the loss of networks. Both forms of loneliness are at times exacerbated by their experiences in institutional sites. The paper concludes that the creation of stronger bonds between international and local students in the educational setting, helping international students to remake their own cultural maps on their own terms, is key to a forward move on loneliness.