Abstract:

Studying abroad is a challenge for every student. The results depend much on adaptation to new environment and culture. People’s Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) has been focused on foreign students from the very beginning 60 years ago. Gained experience showed us the necessity of not only individual work with student that involves tutoring, educational trajectory planning, communities and psychological support, but also organization of in- and out group interaction.

Our research involved students from China, Africa and Latin America because most of foreign students come from these regions. Each country has its community in RUDN-University. Chinese community is highly consolidated and organized. Its main aim is to help its members with all kind of problems: bureaucratic, learning problems, interpersonal. Students from Latin American and African region have their own communities according to the country of their origin. That is why interaction between them is less intense. Consolidation is lower as well as resources for mutual support because communities are not as vast as Chinese and less organized. It is important to notice that links between communities of Latin America are very intense and mostly informal. They frequently organize joint fests, culture presentations and parties. They are very friendly, eager to help. African communities have rather formal interactions and are mostly involved in culture presentation.

According to The Lewis Model of Cross-Cultural Communication Russia belongs mostly to multi-active cultures with elements of linear-active culture, while Africa and Latin America to multi-active cultures with elements of reactive culture. China is reactive culture. This made it possible to assume that African and Latin-American students may have fewer difficulties in adaptation.

We used questionnaire on personal adaptation to the new socio-cultural environment by L.V. Yankovsky. We conducted Kruskal-Wallis H-test and Mann-Whitney U-test to understand differences between groups and decide which factor plays greater role – culture closeness or community support.

No significant differences in adaptation were found between Chinese and Latin-American students. Comparing to African students both Chinese and Latin-Americans have higher level of adaptation and interaction component and lower depression. These results emphasizes meaning of group support and opportunity to keep in touch with your culture and represent your country and region abroad.

Keywords:

Adaptation, educational migration, Chinese, African and Latin American students.