The latest (January/February 2013) Journal of College Student Development provided two articles on Asian students and their experience. One was about Chinese students studying in the U.S.A. and the other was about Malaysian students’ experience across culture in their home country. With Asian students comprising a very large proportion of the emerging international higher education community, these articles are very welcome!
Kun Yan and David C. Berliner’s article (pp. 62-84) reported the results of a qualitative study of Chinese students in a Southwest U.S. campus. While the results may not be a surprise to those who have had the opportunity to work with Chinese students, the documentation and the conclusions are critical for all campuses to consider. The findings indicated that international students from China experience considerable stress during their study. Personal areas such as job opportunities, visa problems, pressure about dating and marriage, and the pressure of financial affairs cause the greatest difficulty. Even though Chinese students are anxious to study in the U.S., they may have underestimated the financial burden, which is only compounded by the inability to work or the further strain of having to take off-record employment that is culturally demeaning to them. Chinese students’ families urging them to find other Chinese nationals to date and perhaps marry while in the U.S. is significant for both males and females; the unfortunate dynamic is that Chinese students report that their peers are undesirable because most are so dedicated to their studies. The second category that causes stress for Chinese students is in the area of sociocultural concerns – specifically, lack of interaction with American students, language and culture deficiency, and clashes in values. Many Chinese students report having minimal contact with Americans, the lack of which results in poor progress in informal English language use as well as isolation from the “American experience.” This research article proposed a number of helpful suggestions for universities to undertake, a good portion of which is in the area of orientation and acculturation and the rest in career and work-related matters. The call is for real advocacy for Chinese students, a call being taken up by some U.S. institutions that are beginning to realize that Chinese students will be more successful and will contribute much if special services are offered to assist them.
Ezhar Tamam’s article (pp. 85-97) on interracial bridging in a multicultural university in Malaysia found that the pattern of self-segregation that can sometimes be observed on U.S. campuses also took place in the case under study – a multicultural campus of 19,000 undergraduate and 10,000 postgraduate students with a 5:3:2 ratio of Malay to Chinese to Indian students. This campus attempted to increase the multicultural interaction through a mandatory course but found after 5 years that is was not working. As a result of the study, the author recommended that, in order to increase positive multicultural interaction that contributes to building social capital, attention be placed on how students interact outside of class. Increasing the representation of minorities in student organizations and extracurricular activities were two strategies recommended as offering both interactional and structural opportunity for relationship building. This article is noteworthy in its use of research that originated in North America but was then tested in a very different cultural context. More of this kind of comparative analysis is needed.
A common issue that may be part of the dynamics described in both of the above is culturally-derived patterns of social interaction. Having recently read
Susan Cain’s Quiet (2012), I began to wonder if the cultural pattern that Cain described might be influencing both the way Asian students engage while studying in the U.S. as well as when they study in their home countries or at other regional locations where high numbers of Asian and multicultural students are present. If Cane’s analysis is correct, then Asian students’ engagement with each other, with students of other cultures, and with campus itself may be exacerbated by a reluctance to initiate or stand out. Cane proposes, and perhaps your observation or experience reinforces, that Asian students are more comfortable with a collectivist feel, one where standing out and bringing attention to oneself is a negative attribute. Understanding this, how might student experiences be shaped that encourage interaction but one more focused on the group, group cohesion, and mutual contribution?
