Alina Schartner, Tony J. Young: Intercultural transitions in higher education: international student adjustment and adaptation

Abstract

COVID-19 has shed a light on what it is like to be international students and the issues that they face in higher education (Cheung, 2020). Although there has already been a burgeoning literature on international students' experiences, research in this area is largely fragmented and under-theorised, since different research fields (e.g. cultural studies, applied linguistics, social psychology, and educational research) have adopted different approaches to investigate international student mobility. Schartner and Young integrates a number of theoretical and methodological approaches to address this issue by presenting a conceptual model and empirical findings on the multifaceted experiences of mobile students, based on a research project in British higher education. The book comprises three parts. Part 1 addresses the theoretical and methodological approaches of the research project presented in the subject matter, Part 2 focuses on the empirical data informing the new model of international student experiences, and Part 3 explores the implications and applications of the findings. Throughout Chap. 1, the authors contextualise their study within the current political and social circumstances, providing a rationale for how ecumenical approaches to interculturality best fulfil their research purposes. The introductory chapter also clarifies the meaning of keywords, such as 'adjust-ment' and 'adaptation', which have been used ambiguously by earlier researchers. Chapter 2 outlines previous research on the transitional experiences of international students. It explores the multifaceted nature of the issue, which requires academic, psychological, and sociocultural adjustment/adaptation. The chapter also summarises earlier findings on the major factors including linguistic and sociocultural resources that contribute to the successful transition of mobile students. The authors turn to a methodological discussion in Chap. 3 and emphasise how a mixed-method design can (1) address the dichotomy between posi-tivist and interpretivist approaches to intercultural research and (2) synthesise both adjustment and adaptation, the process and outcome of transition. Chapters 4-8 provide empirical data, both quantitative and qualitative, on the adjustment and adaptation experiences of international postgraduate students, which were * Soyoung Lee