Kim, An Alternative Theoretical Model, College Student Journal, 2012

These concerns are general living (e.g., adaptation to American food, living environment,
transportation, climate, and financial and health care systems), academic (e.g., adapting to a
new educational system and foreign language), socio-cultural (e.g., culture shock,
discrimination, new social/cultural customs, norms, and regulations) and psychological (e.g.,
homesickness, feelings of loneliness and isolation, discrimination, and loss of identity

Psychosocial theories usually view development as a series of separate tasks or stages which
include qualitative changes in thinking, feeling, behaving, valuing, and relating to others and
to one's self (Chickering, 1969; Chickering & Reisser, 1993; Reisser, 1995). Among the most
influential psychosocial development theorists, Erikson (1959) defined identity as accrued
confidence, the ability to maintain inner sameness, and one's meaning to others, shaped by
how individuals organize experiences within environments. In establishing his identity
development model, Erikson (1968) emphasized the centrality of identity development
throughout adolescence and early adulthood. He viewed development as the overcoming of
crises during adolescence and early adulthood, and noted the clash between identity and role
confusion by defining Identity Crisis as the most significant conflict in one's lifetime.

According to Schlossberg (1984), transition is viewed as a change in behaviors or

relationships in response to an event or non-event which affects one's beliefs about oneself or
the world.

Understood to be socially constructed as well, ethnic identity is defined as the identification

with a segment of a larger society whose members are thought of by themselves or others to
have a common origin, a shared cultural experience, and to participate in communal activities
(Ortiz & Santos, 2009).

Severino, Messina & Llorent, “International Student Mobility: An Identity Development

Task?” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 4 No. 3; February 2014

Findings revealed that the motivation to study abroad for personal growth is strongly
associated to the commitment and in-depth exploration identity processes, whereas the
motivation to study abroad with the aim of changing life style and enlarging job
opportunities is positively associated with reconsideration of commitment and in-depth
exploration. Furthermore, identity achieved students showed the highest motivation to study
abroad for personal growth, while the motivation to study abroad to positively change life-
styles and work conditions is strongly associated with the positive facet of identity crisis,
which is otherwise called searching-moratorium status.

The European Union supports governments and non-profit organizations in promoting

exchange programs aimed at increasing the knowledge of and sensitivity to other cultures,
practices, traditions, beliefs and communications (Jabbar, 2012). The European Ministers of
Education (1999) promoted internationalization of education with the aim of harmonizing the
entire academic system. Moreover, the European Commission (2013) has drawn up the Life
Long Learning Program with the purpose of fostering interchange, cooperation and mobility
between education and training institutions so that they may become a world quality
reference.
The ERASMUS program, launched in 1987 and recently merged with the SOCRATES
program, is the most visible outcome of internationalization of education. In 1987, 3.244
students participated in the ERASMUS program. According to a study conducted by the
European Parliament (2010), the number of ERASMUS students has progressively increased
over the decades and today over 2 million young adults study abroad. Though it is likely that
several uncertainties may affect the pace of internationalization, the long-term projection
predicts that, by 2025, perhaps 15 million young adults will study abroad (Altbach & Knight
2007).

In a recent survey, Frieze, Hansen and Boneva (2006), clearly demonstrated that
undergraduate students higher in family centrality, affiliation motivation, attending religious
services and wanting a job with more time for family, were more likely to want to stay in
their home-country, while those higher in work centrality were more likely to want to leave.
Recently, Crocetti, Rubini and Meeus (2008) extended the Marcia’s (1966) paradigm of
identity. They administered the Utrecht Management of Identity Commitment Scale (U-
MICS) to a sample of Italian and Dutch adolescents and showed that a three-factor identity
model (which comprises the three identity processes of Commitment, In-depth exploration
and the new dimension of Reconsideration of commitment) fits better to data than does a one
or two factor model (Crocetti, Schwartz, Fermani, & Meeus, 2010) and can be empirically
derived in similar ways across the two different European countries (Crocetti, Schwartz,
Fermani, Klimstra & Meeus 2012).

Furthermore, sociological and social psychological literature amply demonstrates that identity
formation outcomes depend not solely on inner and psychological processes, but also on
social dynamics and cultural contexts. Enough agreement exists on the recent transformations
of life course in European societies. More specifically, many authors (Kuijsten, 1996; Cavalli
& Galland, 1996; Corijn & Klijzing, 2001; Iacovou, 2002; Billari & Wilson, 2001)
demonstrated the progressive delay in performing the various stages of life: End of education,
entry into labour market, exit from parental house, creation of a new family and the birth of
children.

Though the studying abroad experience is stimulating and gratifying, it could be also stressful
(Khoo & Abu-Rasain, 1994; Leong & Chou, 1996; Misra, Crist & Burant, 2003; Pedersen,
1991). Indeed, international students have to cope with various stressful situations, such as
finding a house, adjusting to new climate, learning new languages, and exploring and
adapting to new educational and cultural systems. Moreover, they have to even cope with
ethnic and religious discrimination, besides learning to negotiate conflicting cultural values
(Yakunina, Weigold, Hercegovac & Elsayed, 2013).

Altbach (1998) adapted the ‘push-pull’ model to the international student mobility
phenomenon. More specifically, the author argues that some students were pushed by
unfavourable conditions in their home countries, while others were pulled by scholarships
and other opportunities in host countries.

King et al 2003, International Student Migration

Not a lot of attention given to ISM in 2003, after 15 years of Erasmus.

…complex relationship between individualisation and globalisation (Beck and Beck-
Gernsheim, 2002).
In moving to another country at a strategic stage of their personal development they start to
create their own “bricolage-biographies” (Lash, 2002), with potential links to several places,
skills, cultures and languages.

Sigalas, Does Erasmus promote a European Identity?

Forty-four years ago Arend Lijphart was urging researchers to collect and analyse data, in
order to study the contribution of European student mobility to European integration. Lijphart
continued, university students are more likely to engage in ‘intensive’ personal contact with
the locals and, furthermore, they ‘belong to the more influential segments (1964: 252).

Lijphart’s premise draws on Karl Deutsch’s theory, according to which increased cross-
border people mobility is one of the essential conditions for the success of international
integration and the formation of a ‘we-feeling’ among different peoples (Deutsch et al.,
1968). If we take into account that living abroad is more likely to have a greater impact on
one’s personality the younger one is, it comes as no surprise that European student mobility is
widely seen as an instrument that promotes a common European identity (e.g. Fligstein,
2008; Green, 2007; Wallace, 1990).

According to the social identity theory, developed by Henri Tajfel in the 1970s, ‘social
identity [is] understood as that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his
knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and
emotional significance to that membership’ (1978: 63).

According to Deutsch et al. (1968), international integration is a dynamic process which

largely depends on international transactions. The latter take different forms ranging from
international trade and capital flows to labour migration, student mobility, tourism, mail
exchanges and other types of international exchanges. What is important is that these
transactions will create multiple networks of communication between individuals and
institutions which may lead to the formation of a ‘we-feeling’ and, consequently, to a
‘pluralistic’ or ‘amalgamated security community’ (Puchala, 1981). Of the different forms of
international transactions Deutsch et al. (1968) highlighted the significance of cross-border
people mobility. They claimed that their
‘finding of the importance of the mobility of persons suggests that in this field of politics
persons may be more important than either goods or money’ (ibid., p. 54), while limited
mobility of persons ‘is a serious deterrent to further [integration] progress’, (ibid., p. 154).

Finally, I showed that a ceiling effect played only a limited role in the particular ERASMUS
outcome. What is more important is the host country choice. Unfortunately, the outgoing
sample is not large enough to examine the ERASMUS effect in each European country
individually. Nevertheless, the countries the outgoing students visited were all less
Eurosceptic than Britain which may be the reason why only outgoing students felt more
attached to Europe and acknowledged more commonalities with other Europeans.

Morita, Negotiating Participation and Identity in Second Language Academic

Communities
As I demonstrate in this article, the issue of L2 participation and socialization is closely
related to important issues such as identity, competence, power, access, and agency (Duff,
2002; Norton & Toohey, 2002).

Using primarily qualitative research, researchers have shown that academic socialization is
not simply a matter of acquiring pregiven knowledge and sets of skills but involves a
complex process of negotiating identities, cultures, or power relations. Some researchers also
argue that a given academic community can have multiple, changing, and sometimes
competing discourses, which can make newcomers’ socialization less predictable and less
linear (Canagarajah, 1999; Duff, 2002; Harklau, 2000). Furthermore, some argue that
disciplinary socialization needs to be viewed as a two-way negotiation rather than a
unidirectional enculturation (e.g., Casanave, 1995; Prior, 1998; Zamel, 1997): Not only do
learners from diverse backgrounds negotiate academic discourses, but discourse communities
can change as newcomers join them.

The focal students’ inner voices clearly indicated, first of all, that negotiating roles or
identities was an important part of their socialization. The membership and identities that the
students constructed in a given classroom simultaneously shaped and were shaped by their
class participation.

the same learner can negotiate different identities and participate variously in different
contexts. In other words, the local classroom context—the social, cultural, historical,
curricular, pedagogical, interactional, and interpersonal context—is inseparable from
learners’ participation.

Dunne, Exploring motivations for intercultural contact among hostcountry university

students: An Irish case study, 2013

The findings indicate that host students’ decision to engage in intercultural contact is based
primarily on a perceived utility associated with such contact, which is based on an informal
cost–benefit analysis. Other, less prevalent motivational drivers, such as concern for others
and the idea of having a shared future are also identified.

[…] gap in literature relating to motivations for engaging in intercultural contact and also
seeks to highlight the potential value of social exchange theory (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) to
understanding the dynamics of intercultural contact.

Within the literature relating to both intercultural contact and the internationalisation of
higher education, there is an abundance of references to the potential benefits which can be
fostered by interaction with cultural diversity. As Volet (2004:4) remarks; Diverse university
student populations provide unique social forums to foster intercultural development (Volet,
1999),reciprocal tolerance (Horne, 2003) and the development of multicultural individuals
(Adler, 1974).

Other scholars highlighting the potential benefits of student diversity include McBurnie
(2000) and Luo and Jamieson-Drake (2009), who found that students who experienced
relatively greater levels of interaction with diverse peers in higher education had higher levels
of skills development in […] developing awareness of social problems, having creativity in
relation to idea generation and problem-solving, being able to independently acquire new
skills and knowledge, and relating well to people of different races, nations, or religions.

…it is important to recognise the drawbacks of operationalising culture based exclusively on

nationality

While these approaches to operationalising cultural difference reflect different perspectives,

they nonetheless overlap in their argument that a diverse student body may constitute an
added educational resource for learning institutions. This argument is premised on two ideas.
Firstly, students from different cultures – international or domestic – are ‘culture carriers’
who bring diverse ideas, values, experiences and behaviours to the learning environment
(Segall, Dansen, & Poortinga, 1990;cited in Simon & Davies, 1995).

As Conklin (2004: 38) contends: “We learn when shaken by new facts, beliefs, experiences
and viewpoints”, an argument echoed by Bollinger’s (2003: 433) thesis that “Encountering
differences rather than one’s mirror image is an essential part of a good education”. Such a
rationale is informed by the work of established development theorists such as Newcomb
(1943), Piaget (1971), Janis (1972), Langer (1978), and Nemeth, Swedlund, and Kanki
(1973) and their work on concepts such as ‘groupthink’ and ‘integrative complexity’. It posits
that being confronted by alternative perspectives often requires individuals to reflect upon
their own position as well as that or others, while also demanding that they articulate their
personal position in a cogent and reasoned manner to other parties.

Despite this, there is not unanimity espousing the merits of student diversity. A significant
number of scholars highlight the challenges of student diversity and the potential for negative
outcomes, either for the students and/or the institution. These include increased stereotyping,
a hardening of prejudicial attitudes towards other groups, and intergroup hostility. (Asmar,
2005; Henderson-King & Kaleta, 2000; Lerner & Nagai, 2001; Rothman, Lipset, & Nevitte,
2003; Wood & Sherman,2001).

As Ujitani (2006: 6) posits, “students studying on multicultural campuses cannot experience

these benefits unless meaningful interactions between international and local students are
facilitated”.

Despite receiving very little attention within intercultural studies, the concept of homophily
(Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1954),defined by Centola, González-Avella, Eguíluz, and San Miguel
(2007: 905–906) as “the tendency of people with similar traits (including physical, cultural,
and attitudinal characteristics) to interact with one another more than with people with
dissimilar traits”, is arguably one of the most crucial concepts in the field, given that
homophilic behaviour represents one of the major, apparently a priori, barriers to intercultural
contact. Essentially, the homophily principle hypothesises that where an individual has free
choice to interact with any one of a variety of people, the individual will typically opt to
interact with a person whom they perceive to be similar to themselves (Rogers & Bhowmik,
1970: 528).

Conclusion: This article has explored host students’ motivation to voluntarily engage in
intercultural contact in a higher education context. Among the four principal motivational
factors which were identified, that of ‘perceived utility’ emerged as the fundamental driver of
voluntary contact, with three less influential factors of ‘shared future’, ‘concern for others’
and ‘interest and curiosity’ also identified.
Despite the increase in activity in the field of intercultural studies in recent decades, there
appears to be a lack of both research and theory in relation to our motivations for voluntarily
seeking out intercultural contact. In a world defined by ever-greater levels of human mobility
and communities with growing levels of cultural diversity, this topic is of central concern.
What precisely motivates an individual to engage with those whom they perceive to be
culturally different?

Koehne, (Re)construction: Ways international students talk about their identity

International students are a diverse group, but they have often been spoken about in academic
literature and in academic conversations as an entity, rather than as individuals with a range
of personal histories and experiences, and a range of personal motivations and desires which
have constructed the desire to become an international student.

‘overseas student’ is . . . a convenient stereotype . . . Not only do most overseas students

come from plural societies, each of which embraces a wide range of cultures and religions
but, in addition, each national and racial group diverges markedly in its customs, goals and
values from every other. (McAdam, 1972, p. 97)

The many competing facets of subjectivity—contexts, discourses that have power to speak
what subjectivities are available, the element of desire to become, and the ways in which
individuals work with difference and sameness as they build up multiple layers of their
changing subjectivity—are somehow developed into a more or less coherent storyline of self.

Sometimes individuals construct their subjectivity through difference, at other times through
shared experience and sameness

Fincher & Shaw, 2011, Enacting separate social worlds: ‘International’ and ‘local’
students in public space in central Melbourne

From this literature comes a longstanding emphasis, supported by the findings of many
surveys of students, on the importance for self-perceptions of well-being of interactions
between newly arrived ‘international’ students and the host community of ‘local’ students.
[…] More recently,
Brown (2009), writing in the UK, found that the behaviour of international students in
seeking out co-nationals for friendship reflected their attempts to create feelings of familiarity
in their
new location, but also that the absence of contact with the host community was a source of
great regret for these students and encouraged their preference for co-nationals in their social
networks.

Additionally, all forms of encounter are not congenial. Some are violent or unfriendly
(Goffman, 1961, p. 7). Some are subject to racialized or gendered or other pressures of
exclusion. In urban life there will always be differences in the way groups and individuals
respond to those who are strangers to them (Fincher and Iveson, 2008).

The young people’s comments recorded in this paper tell of the formation of social
experiences among central Melbourne’s university students in the institutional, locational and
social contexts of their lives. The three sets of processes and practices are both racialized and
racialising, each compounding the separation of local and international students who socialise
within these ‘groups’ but not across the administrative divide. That the groups clearly overlap
with students of European and Asian ancestry is a point we note, which could benefit from
further examination. The separation begins with the institutional administrative practice of
labelling students ‘local’ or ‘international’ that has come to identify students profoundly.

Florack et al., 2014, How initial cross-group friendships prepare for intercultural
communication: The importance of anxiety reduction and self-confidence in
communication

Participation in the life of the receiving society has been regarded as a key driver of
psychological health and well-being for individuals who immigrate into a new society. In a
large international study in 13 societies and with more than 5000immigrants between 13 and
18 years of age, Berry, Phinney, Sam, and Vedder (2006) found that immigrants who
preferred social activities involving members from the receiving society as well as
immigrants showed the best psychological outcomes of acculturation (e.g., increased life
satisfaction, reduced psychological problems; see, also Hendrickson, Rosen, & Aune,
2011;Kim & McKay-Semmler, 2013). Recent research implies that cross-group friendships
can function as a good starting pointfor the development of positive attitudes toward
participation in the life of the receiving society, and that cross-group friendships facilitate
social interactions of immigrants with other members of the receiving society – especially
when they are developed shortly after migration (Ramelli, Florack, Kosic, & Rohmann,
2013).

Our assumptions were inspired by the Anxiety and Uncertainty Management theory of
intercultural communication (AUM; Gudykunst, 2005a,2005b). This complex theory of
communication predicts that the likelihood that individuals will initiate communication with
a member from a different cultural group depends on an affective component, anxiety, and a
cognitive component, uncertainty. The theory supposes that individuals often avoid
interaction with members of the receiving society because they are uncertain about how
members of the receiving society will react to their communication attempts and what an
appropriate communicative approach would be. The theory further postulates that uncertainty
about the attitudes, values, behaviours, and potential responses of members of the receiving
society is accompanied by a feeling of unease or tension.

Fritz, Chin & DeMarinis, 2008, Stressors, anxiety, acculturation and adjustment among
international and North American students

In order to be successful in global communication it is necessary to be able to think and act in

interculturally appropriate ways. Hammer, Bennett, and Wiseman (2003) call this
intercultural competence and suggest that this is essential to enhance relations across the
globe. Even though a vast number of countries today are composed of multicultural societies,
the hardship of acculturation after migration persists. It is evident that individuals and groups
embark on the acculturation process in different ways. Thus, the experiencing of migration is
heterogeneous

Another theory that addresses similar issues of intergroup anxiety is the integrated threat
theory (ITT) of prejudice by Stephan and Stephan (1985). Here anxiety is seen as the
fundamental cause for negative coalition between ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups. As threats are
experienced individuals tend to rely more heavily on stereotypes, and express more negative
emotions and evaluations (Stephan, Stephan, & Gudykunst, 1999). Thus, unfavourable
relations with host
students decrease international students’ wellbeing function

Stephan et al. (1999) suggest that anxiety decreases as people come to know one another, and
when anxiety is low sojourners’ maladaptive behaviours are less likely to occur (Hullett &
Witte, 2001). Thus, as international students establish ties with other international, co-
national, and local students they are more likely to experience a pleasant adjustment
(Kashima & Loh, 2006).
The findings of the current study stress the necessity for rethinking the current trend of
treating international students as a homogenous population. Making use of acculturation
findings and attention to the impact of perceptions of the new cultural environment are
critical for gaining an understanding of the actual and perceived challenges to cultural
adaptation (Committee on Cultural Psychiatry, 2002).

Howkins, 1999, How students experience professional socialisation

Berger and Luckman (1967) distinguish between primary and secondary socialisation, the
former is the process found in childhood and the latter is the subsequent process a person
undergoes to become socialised into wider society. Jarvis (1983) defines socialisation as “the
process by which the objective world of reality is internalised and becomes subjectively
meaningful”. Socialisation into an occupation is a major part of secondary socialisation.
Jarvis (1983) felt it had such significance that it should not be seen as part of secondary
socialisation but regarded as a separate process, tertiary socialisation.

Jung, 2007, The role of identity in international students’ psychological well-being in

the United States: A model of depression level, identity gaps, discrimination, and
acculturation

They (students, sic) can experience culture shock, homesickness, lack of support, limited
social skills, stereotyping and prejudice, and so on. Facing all these challenges may be
stressful and produce negative psychological outcomes, such as depressive symptoms, that
interfere with their educational experience.

People who have more possible stressors may be more vulnerable to depressive symptoms.
Students in a foreign country often have problems interacting with members of the host
culture and adjusting to daily life. These additional stressors may be related to depressive
symptoms (Spencer-Oatety & Xiong, 2006). That is, international students are a vulnerable
group whose members are at risk for depressive symptoms and depression.

Self or identity issues are reported to be associated with depression.

Due to cultural differences and communication barriers, international students’ expressions of

selves may be restricted when they communicate with members of the host culture. They also
may experience discontinuities between their self-concepts and how Americans (host
students, sic) see them. These identity inconsistencies (i.e., between how they express their
self and how they see themselves as well as between how they see themselves and how others
see them) are labeled ‘identity gaps’ and have been found to be related to negative
consequences among US college students (Jung & Hecht, 2004), as well as depression levels
among a community sample of Korean Americans (Jung & Hecht, in press). Thus, identity
gaps are examined as possible sources of international students’ depressive symptoms.

An international student’s identity gaps arise when his/her self-concept, communication

behavior, and ascriptions by Americans (host students, sic) are not aligned in communication.

Pham, 2013, International students’ identities in a globalized world: Narratives from

Vietnam

In the market-driven landscape of international education, international students are often

assumed to be global citizens with tastes, senses and values that would fit into a global
Western capitalist economy. However, the status of international students is layered with
political, economic, culture, social and personal complexities (Marginson, 2011). Their
identities are constructed by historical experiences, and personal and social circumstances,
which are enriched and complicated by the cross-border contemporary social life. The
networks of their social relationships are tied to their ethnic origin and experiences in their
homeland that foster a kind of ‘difference’ when students are placed in new sociocultural
groups in the host countries (Vertovec, 1999). At the same time, these differences foster new
meanings that propel students to change their behaviours in order to adjust to the demands of
living and learning in a new environment. The way that students perceive their world governs
how they represent themselves in that world, which consciously and non-consciously shapes
their identities (Stryker and Burke, 2000: 285).

Stark, 2015, Liking and disliking minority-group classmates: Explaining the mixed
findings for the influence of ethnic classroom composition on interethnic attitudes

Building on Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis, numerous studies predicted that mixing
students of different ethnicities in schools would improve students’ attitudes toward other
ethnic groups (e.g., Bakker et al., 2007; Ellison and Powers, 1994; Moody, 2001; Vervoort et
al., 2011). Yet, empirical tests of this prediction have produced mixed results (Thijs and
Verkuyten, 2014).

However, others provided no support for a relationship between school or classroom

composition and outgroup attitudes (Bakker et al., 2007; Wagner et al., 1989). Furthermore,
recent research even found a negative relationship between the number of outgroup
classmates and students’ attitudes toward the ethnic groups of these classmates (Vervoort et
al., 2011).

The notion that interpersonal liking and disliking relationships are generalized to outgroup
attitudes offers a new interpretation of the mixed findings of previous research on the effects
of classroom composition. Studies that found a positive effect of ethnic classroom
composition on outgroup attitudes may have focused on settings with more liking than
disliking relationships between members of different groups. Those studies that did not find
an effect may have investigated settings where the effects of liking and disliking relationships
cancelled each other out. And in the study that reported more negative attitudes in mixed
classes, students may have mostly disliked their classmates from other ethnic groups.

Torres, 2009, Identity Development Theories in Student Affairs: Origins, Current

Status, and New Approaches

Social construction of identity occurs in different contexts on campus such as in how student
organizations are created and which students are drawn to them, or in the social identities
among those in leadership positions and those not, as well as in issues of institutional fit
within access and retention. One of the components of identity development that arises
quickly on most campuses is the process of students learning how to balance their needs with
those of others (Kegan, 1982, 1994; Kroger, 2004).