Abstract
The cultural identity of sojourners undergoing cultural transition, especially student sojourners (also known as international students), has recently become a burgeoning research interest. This chapter presents a longitudinal qualitative study, using semi-structured interviews (N=13), which explores how the students viewed their cultural identities and how study abroad in British higher education might influence their perceptions. The study monitored the experience of the students throughout the sojourn and the re-entry period when they returned home for less than three months. Findings show that after study abroad, most students experienced changes in cultural identities and developed “mixed” cultural identities. Based on the findings, suggestions for researchers and educators in the cross-cultural transition and intercultural communication fields, such as the modification of the definition of cultural identity, are proposed.
TopIntroduction
Demand for study abroad has increased quickly. In 2019, there were over 6 million international students worldwide (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 2021). Internationalisation has recently become the key agenda for many universities in the world. ‘Internationalisation’ of higher education (IoHE) is defined as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions and delivery of post-secondary education” (Knight, 2004, p.11). The aim of IoHE is to improve teaching and learning quality (de Wit et al., 2015), strengthen international connections, intercultural competence and cultural diversity of the students (Knight, 2011). The UK is currently the country with the third largest population of international students. In 2019/20, there were 538,615 international students in the UK (Universities UK, 2021). It is not uncommon to find a programme in UK universities with the majority of students are international (Pho & Schartner, 2019). In 2014/15, the fee income of international students accounted for 26% of the total tuition-fee income in UK HE (Higher Education Funding Council for England, 2016). Note that in the UK, students at higher education (HE) institutions are categorised based on the fee status: (1) ‘home’ students (i.e., UK students), (2) EU students (students from the European Union) and (3) international students (i.e., students from other countries). However, the term ‘international students’ in this chapter is used interchangeably with student sojourners to refer to all non-UK students.
International students have become a large and important cohort for the UK HE development, and have recently started to gain much research attention. Since the early 2010s, the research foci have been on improvement of the international student’s experience beyond the academic context. Research in this field has been threefold: (1) language learning and teaching, (2) cross-cultural transition and adaptation and (3) interculturality and cultural identity. This research focused on the last and relatively new theme: the cultural identity of international students. Research on the cultural identities of international students generally focus on the student group with a long period of overseas stay (i.e., undergraduate or doctorate students with four years of study or more) (see Bond, 2019; Wee, 2019; Yu, 2019). The researchers often employ cross-sectional design and examine specific student groups such as Chinese students (see We, 2019; Gu & Schweisfurth, 2015). The majority of those studies investigate the cultural identity change during oversea stay, but rarely investigate the re-entry period.
Key Terms in this Chapter
‘Home’ Cultures: Cultures that a person grow up with or regard as familiar.
Cultural identity: How people define themselves in relation to some cultural groups which can be their home cultures or ‘other’ cultures that are perceived to be ‘foreign’. The person constructs their cultural identities by: 1) reflecting on sense of emotional and place attachment towards the groups; 2) performing comparisons between their behaviours and those groups’ members; and 3) acknowledging their cultural memberships.
‘Mixed’ Cultural Identities: A person feels identified with multiple cultures and sees themselves as member of the world and a global citizen. This concept is similar to “intercultural identity”; also known as “meta-identity”, “transcultural identity”, “cosmopolitan identity” and “citizen of the globe” ( Kim, 2008 , p. 364).
Sojourner: A person who temporarily move to a different culture and will relocate to their home culture after the sojourn.
Re-Entry: The period when a sojourner returns to their home cultures.
Culture: Patterns of a social organisation and behaviours regarded to be ‘appropriate’ and ‘natural’ in that organisation.
‘Foreign’ Cultures: Cultures that are perceived to be different or unfamiliar to a person.
Place Attachment: The attachment and symbolic meaning of a place to a person, which is also known as the ‘sense of place’.