Resilience and Readjustment of Indian Migrant Students

Abstract

One extra ordinary situation, where human beings face cultural, economic, social as well as psychological changes, is the movement of students away from home for education. When students migrate from their native places in pursuit of higher education, it is considered to be a given that they will face adjustment issues. They have to adjust to a different educational set up, an alien local culture and a changed personal situation where they have to manage independently. This situation brings with itself possible stress and challenges to personal resources. They may experience 'culture shock1 (Fabrizio & Neill, 2005) as a result of experiencing a combination of home sickness, negative acts and interpersonal conflicts. Migrant students go through a process of adjustment to these new circumstances, termed as 'readjustment1 in the present research.Many studies have been conducted to examine how various factors like diet, exercise and sleep differentially affect resilience (Hawkley et al., 2005) or how risk or protective factors are a result of learning from and interpretation of varied experiences (Curtis & Cicchetti, 2003). Though some aspects of readjustment have been studied in relationship with resilience as mentioned here, the relationship between resilience and readjustment has not been directly studied before.The present study fulfills this gap as it explores the relationship between resilience and the readjustment of migrant students more directly.Resilience is the ability to bounce back to normalcy and even thrive in the face of serious life challenges; relocation or migration being one of them. It involves external adaptation so as to fulfil the social, educational and occupational expectations of society as well as internal adaptation so as to experience psychological well-being (Snyder & Lopez, 2008). Masten et al. (2009) define Resilience as A class of phenomena characterized by good outcome in spite of serious threats to adaptation or (as cited in Snyder and Lopez, 2008, pp.94). Resilience involves two aspects- one, that the individual is doing well or is at least giving normal outputs by any standard and two, that there is a threat to adjustment or development in the current situation or hadbeen in the past.Readjustment is the act of adjusting again to changed circumstances (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Languages, 2009). In the context of the present research, it refers to the changes that migrants have to make in themselves in order to adjust to the new surroundings. These changes are global and occur in all important domains of life like physical, environmental, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, social, financial and general psychological well being.Objectives of the study* To measure the Resilience and Readjustment of Migrant Students,* To study the relation between Resilience and Readjustment among Migrant Students.Hypothesis of the study* Resilience will be negatively correlated with readjustment of Indian migrant students.MethodParticipantsAn incidental sample of 156 Indian migrant students studying in traditional, non-professional courses at various colleges in Pune city was selected for the present study. The age ranged from 18 to 22 years (mean age = 20.3 years, SD= 17.8). The participants hadbeen staying away from home for a period of 1 year to 13 years (mean duration = 2.8 years, SD=27). The sample consisted of 59 males and 97 females.Criteria of Inclusion* Age group of 18 22 years* Students pursuing under graduate conventional, non-professional courses in Arts, Science and Commerce faculties, staying in Pune for at least 1 yearCriterion of Exclusion* Migrant students relocating within Maharashtra as well as foreign nationals* Students studying in professional collegesInstrumentsThe present research made use of following psychology tests Resilience Scale (RS) by Wagnild and Young (2009): This scale was used to measure the resilience dimension. …