What's for Sale at Canadian Universities? A Mixed‐Methods Analysis of Promotional Strategies

The current fiscal environment has driven Canadian universities to become more entrepreneurial, seeking out and competing over new sources of funding. Despite such intensifying competition, little effort has been made to document the promotional tactics that Canadian universities are using to render themselves appealing to external audiences. This study examines the contents of the home pages of English‐speaking universities in Canada. It finds that, though there are some differences in the tactics that primarily undergraduate and research‐intensive universities employ, both generally strive to emulate the same institutional ‘template’. Moreover, the usage of more unorthodox promotional tactics, drawing on labour market rhetoric or discourses of inclusivity, is limited. These findings are theorised in relation to contemporary work within organisational sociology and strategic management.     

Educational concerns of Arabic speaking migrants from Sudan and Iraq to Melbourne: Expectations on migrant parents in Australia

Families immigrating to Australia face many challenges integrating into the educational system, including language barriers and interrupted schooling. We have qualitatively evaluated the educational concerns of Arabic migrants from Sudan and Iraq to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, a city that receives a high percentage of Australia's immigrants. Using an interactive paradigm incorporating focus group discussions for thematic analysis, we concluded that the parents’ frame of reference for education was a more didactic style of learning. Parents viewed education as an essential part of the way forward for their children in Australia. However, it was stressful for them to try to cope with a new host nation's expectation of their involvement in their children's education while at the same time dealing with a language barrier. Professionals should look to empower parents with structural information about the key elements of the educational curriculum with minimal reliance on written technical language and match their expectations of parental involvement to the situation of the parents.