Conflicts and Adaptation in "Cultural Gap": a case study of Ethnic Chinese International Students at Peking University

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Higher education SIG roundtable 2

Proposal

There is a special group of foreign students who study in China: their parents were mostly born and raised in China. They immigrated to foreign countries through educational or economic approach, and kept their complete Chinese cultural traditions and living habits. Born or raised abroad as well, these students have the same appearance as Chinese native students. fluent in both Chinese and English, they are influenced by both Chinese and foreign culture and education. They are Ethnic Chinese International Students, the product of immigration and educational internationalization. Their identity and position is complex: at the official level in the university, such as course selection and accommodation arrangement, their identity and treatment are not different from other overseas students. In terms of personal culture, such as living habits, ways of thinking, and interpersonal relationships, they intersect with both Chinese native students and other foreign students. In the "cultural gap" between China and the west, they felt the performance of cultural conflict on individual students most directly, and found their own adaptive path in the process of contradiction and selection. Through in-depth observation, interview and research of this group, we can understand the problems and challenges brought by cultural collision to individuals receiving higher education in details under the background of internationalization, and explore the relationship between higher education and individual identity and cultural inheritance from the perspective of intercultural development. It is also a response to the theme of the conference at the individual and cultural sustainable development level.

At present, there are many mature theories for reference in cross-cultural adaptation. Since the 1930s, American anthropologist Redfield et al. made clear the content and method of the research on cultural adaptation in their report. since 1970s, as the international population mobility is more frequently and studying abroad is increasingly popular, study of cultural adaptation problems are further promoted, such as American anthropologist Oberg’s "culture shock" model and Lysgaard’s the “U-shaped curve hypothesis”, Canadian scholar Berry’s "cross-cultural adaptation model", New Zealand scholar Ward’s "cultural adaptation process model" and Germany psychologist Danckwortt’s " unfamiliar cultural adaptation theory" and so on. Among them, Danckwortt's theory comprehensively analyzed the problems of overseas students' adaptation to different cultural environments, including process, stage and influencing factors, etc., so I chose it as the main theoretical framework of this paper.

In this study, the qualitative research method was adopted to study 10 ethnic Chinese international undergraduate students studying in Peking University. They were observed for one semester long (including classroom study, extracurricular activities, interpersonal communication) and conducted one-on-one interviews. The 10 participants include 4 boys and 6 girls, all aged between 17 and 23, and from 8 countries including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, South Korea and Norway. Through the collection, collation, coding and word frequency analysis of observation records and interview data, it is found that almost all the participants are confused about identity, which makes them uncomfortable about the separation between school management and individual cultural attributes. It is difficult to integrate themselves into the two groups at the same time. Compared with these two groups, they even formed their own small group. Most of them think that they have more common topics with other ethnic Chinese international students and have a sense of belonging to their own small group. In addition, factors such as nationality, time spent living overseas, and gender also contribute to differences in adaptability.

According to their identity orientation, this study can classify them into "origin type", "native type", "neutral type" and "balanced type". The factors that caused the difference were consistent with the knowledge and experience, interests and needs, and living habits mentioned in Danckwortt adaptation theory. However, what was different from Danckwortt's theory was that for them the education environment in China was not completely different cultures, but "semi-different cultures". Therefore, when they face other foreign students and Chinese students respectively, they often achieve quick transitions between the roles of "host" and "guest", sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. This is particularly obvious in "balanced type". As a "resident" at the cultural junction, ethnic Chinese international students also formed a unique "way of survival" in the "cultural gap". This also provides a new starting point for the study of cultural adaptability.

Author

• Zhu Yanzhen, Graduate School of Education in Peking University, China