Chinese international students’ intercultural experiences during their first year of study in an Australian university

Abstract

This one-year longitudinal ethnographic case study explored the intercultural experiences of 11 Chinese international students during their first year of study in an English language pathway programme and Master’s degrees in commerce or engineering in an Australian university. This enquiry was motivated by an identification of the emphasis on cultural differences resulting from national boundaries and the essentialist grouping of international students as the major limitations in previous research on international students’ cultural adaptation. In response to these limitations, a theoretical framework taking a normalisation perspective was proposed to guide this enquiry. This theoretical framework addresses Chinese students’ intercultural experiences at the individual, community and transnational levels. At the individual level, Bourdieu’s (2013a) capital, field and habitus were applied to explain Chinese students’ intercultural experiences. Imagined community and tribalisation together were utilised to understand Chinese students’ intercultural experiences at the community level. Transnationalisation was employed to interpret Chinese students’ intercultural experiences at the transnational level. This study adopted semi-structured interviews, focus groups, classroom observations and social network exchange collections (observing participants’ public posts on WeChat and Facebook) for data collection, and used content analysis to analyse the data collected. It applied friendship as method as the way to balance power relations and collect data. The findings of the study indicate that Chinese international students have diverse intercultural experiences during their first year of study in Australia. Their diverse intercultural experiences are attributed to their motivations and beliefs related to intercultural interaction. The study also finds that Chinese students’ intercultural experiences demonstrate their capacities to construct and fulfill their own social needs in facing the constraints from their context. The findings suggest that universities and teachers should change their viewpoints with regard to the ideas that international students should proactively interact with local students and make significant adaptations to accommodate intrinsic cultural gaps. This study also encourages international education institutions to appreciate international students’ individual differences in intercultural interactions, and cultivate their capacities to manage social relations. Universities, teachers and researchers should work together to create additional resources and guidance to enhance international students’ intercultural experiences.