Taking Initiative and Constructing Identity: International Graduate Student Spouses’ Adjustment and Social Integration in a University Town

• In Event: Adult Education Research Around the Globe

Abstract

Despite growing numbers of international graduate student spouses (IGSSs) in the U.S., their experiences are often overlooked or equated with those of international graduate students. This paper uses interview, focus group, and mapping data from a qualitative study to explore the social integration and adjustment of 13 IGSSs who were enrolled in an adult ESL class in a university town. The findings explain how IGSSs adjusted to their new community and new role of supporting spouse; the strategies they used to gain entrée to, and navigate social spaces within, the host community; and the factors that enabled and hindered their social integration. This portrait of IGSSs can inform the design of support systems and adult education instruction.

Authors

• Kimeka G. Campbell, The Pennsylvania State University

• Esther Prins, The Pennsylvania State University