An empirical study on cross-cultural adaptation of Uygur undergraduates in Peking University

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: International student motivations and adjustment needs - table 2

Proposal

China is a multi-ethnic country. National ethnic issues are always numerous and complicated. The Uygur ethnic group, as one of the 56 ethnic groups in China, mainly live in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Due to historical, religious, environmental differences and other complex factors, Uygur-Han relations become strained in recent years. With the popularization of higher education and the introduction of The 7th Cooperation Plan of the Mainland Universities to Support Xinjiang's Minority Talents, more and more Uygur students come to study in mainland universities. Do they adapt themselves well? Are there any cross-cultural obstacles for them? Are there any differences in relation to grade, gender or major? How to propose valuable advice to future Uygur students, universities and the central government? This study will examine these issues and aim not only at giving advice to minority higher education, but also for the Chinese national unity.
As a national key comprehensive university, Peking University has always been the pioneer in the development of higher education in China. The Uygur students in Peking University face a more complex cross-cultural environment. Therefore, this study takes Peking University’s Uygur undergraduates as example by using qualitative method, and with the help of Ward’s cross-cultural adaptation theory and Weidman’s model of undergraduate socialization. In order to seek the relations between the status quo of their cross-cultural adaptation and grades, the preliminary study interviewed four male Uygur undergraduates of four grades who all major in electronics engineering and computer science.
The preliminary study revealed that all the interviewees experienced adaptation problems. They become more sensitive. They prefer to play with their small Uygur group in and outside school. Besides, the junior has to repeat a year’s work because of failing the final exam, and the senior has to delay graduation as a result of not completing the necessary credits. For the senior, the length of residence in the new culture doesn’t result in well adaptation, but separation. Overall, the cross-cultural obstacles that impact the Uygur undergraduates’ cross-cultural adaptation can be divided into four dimensions, which are student background characteristics (the lack of self-confidence brought by low family socio-economic status and poor basic knowledge accumulation，the loss of courage to make friends because of language barrier and different eating habits and religion), collegiate experience( the pressure caused by course difficulty, the depression caused by the loss of teacher-student interaction after class, the special treatment of classmates and the difficulty in finding a lover), social environment (national disputation and unfavorable public opinion) and non-college preference groups (Uygur friends outside school). One interesting finding is that all the four interviewees consider their teachers and classmates as friendly people, but it is the kindly special treatment that makes them feel uncomfortable and embarrassed, which in turn pushes them from these teachers and friends.
This is only the initial research results. The latter part of this study will take female Uygur undergraduates and undergraduates in other majors into consideration. More investigation and findings will be available to make the research more complete and the results more reliable.

Author

• Zhen Wang, Peking University