Ethnographic Study of Potential International Students in India

Abstract

Through a four-and-a-half-month ethnographic field research study in Punjab India, I examined the experiential accounts of Indian students who have applied to attend post-secondary schooling in Canada. I conducted the field research in the Indian state of Punjab, in the urban cities of Amritsar and Chandigarh, along with several rural villages in surrounding areas. Originally, my intention was to interview potential students themselves, but being in the field for an extended period, I quickly discovered that I needed to broaden my interview base to include English teachers, professors and agents (recruiters). I conducted approximately thirty interviews while in India