“Intercultural Encounters”: Mentorship Relations as Spaces for Critical Intercultural Learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

There are growing numbers of African international students studying at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Global North. Intercultural mentoring is one response to supporting students in navigating the complex cultural, social, and academic transitions from home to host countries. This article examines the experiences of 18 participants who had recently mentored African international students attending higher education institutions in Canada or in the UK. Semi-structured interviews with participating mentors were transcribed and analysed from a critical intercultural perspective. Results highlight four themes that provide insight into mentors’ approaches to intercultural mentoring: navigating fields of action and intervention, engaging in reflective practice, intercultural mentoring as a relational practice, and mentoring as a decolonising practice. Study findings provide insight into how intercultural mentoring relationships develop and evolve and how mentors approach mentoring relationships as sites that hold transformative learning potential for both mentors and students. The choice of publishing on a leading Education international journal, is testament to the authors’ intent to have high impact on Higher Educations in the Global North in shaping their planning and strategies to better support different groups of international students.