Unlocking the narrative of grief and hope in international students in the Faculty of Education, MUN, NL, Canada

Canada has become a prominent destination for international students from all over the world. This qualitative research aimed to explore the experience of grief and hope in international students in the Canadian academic context. Previous research on international students in the Canadian academic sector has addressed various challenges that international students face; however, little is known about grief and hope among international students in Canadian educational institutions. The study fills a gap in the literature on the Canadian academic context, examining how international master’s students navigate grief during their study period and move toward hope by exploring relationships, listening, and the unknown aspects of their lives. This qualitative research adheres to the narrative approach as a method of inquiry and implements thematic analysis. To gain in-depth knowledge, open-ended semi-structured interviews, observations, and documentation from social media have been collected from three former international master’s students of the Faculty of Education (2021-2023) at MUN, NL, Canada, who experienced grief while pursuing their degree. The results of this research discovered that grieving international students face isolation, academic discrepancy, homesickness, biases, financial problems, accommodation crises and cultural insensitivity, which impact them physically, mentally, and relationally. This research recommended that institutions and counsellors implement a more culturally sensitive approach to support grieving multicultural international students.