Chapter 9: The Intricate Nature of 21st Century Students: Exploring Intersectionality and Persistence Among Immigrant Students at Canadian Universities

By analyzing the strategies used by immigrant students at three Canadian universities, the chapter moves the discussion of immigrant students’ persistence from a deficit to an empowerment model. We contrast the strategies used by immigrant students with those used by Indigenous, Canadian-born visible minority, and Canadian-born nonvisible minority students. Attention is paid to intersectionality as an analytical perspective in order to illustrate the complexities of the experiences of immigrant students’ persistence to graduation. This experience is connected to personal characteristics, past educational experiences, and access to robust institutional supports.