Socioculturally attuned understanding of and engagement with Chinese international undergraduates.

Abstract

Higher education institutions worldwide have come under scrutiny for not doing enough to understand and support international students as campuses diversify with a goal toward building intercultural competence. International students are typically expected to shoulder the burden of adjusting, with the host culture used as a benchmark against which to measure their success. Using Chinese international students in the U.S. as an analytic case and leveraging a sociocultural lens to analyze reasons for their challenges, this article breaks away from a deficit perspective with a goal toward gaining deeper and more empathetic understanding of international students. Utilizing interview and journal data of 18 first- and second-year students, findings reveal that cultural legacies (authority in hierarchy, community over individual, homogeneity, face), schooling experiences (exam orientation, teacher directedness, memorization, and practice), and societal demands (economic development and organization, practical-orientation) interact and contribute to participants’ challenges in the U.S.. In navigating different sociocultural contexts, Chinese international students exhibited agency and fluidity as they work with and against different expectations. These findings spell implications for more socioculturally attuned understanding of and engagement with international students that is intentional, ground-up, and asset-, rather than deficit-, based.

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