Sociocultural adaptive stressors of international students in Russia

Abstract

Introduction. Every international student participating in academic mobility experiences sociocultural adaptation difficulties to a certain extent when facing distinctive cultural features that distinguish host culture from student’s native one and may, therefore, become adaptive stressors. Eliciting these specific cultural features and considering them in academic process and communication with international students is relevant and may favour the development of intercultural competence skills, reduction of adaptation time and establishment of psychological comfort and, thus, decrease the risk of strong cultural shock, maladaptation and facilitate healthy interpersonal communication between international and local students. All together this may contribute to sociocultural adaptation making it milder for international students to undergo. The research aims at identifying specific sociocultural differences between Russia and foreign countries, which may act as stressors impeding the adaptation process and have a negative impact on international students’ academic performance. Materials and methods. The survey embraced 103 international students from MGIMO University and Ryazan State University named after S. Yesenin. All the students had experience of living and studying in Russia. The authors designed a questionnaire concerning several domains of everyday life including residence, climate, food and nourishment, public transportation use, services (medical institutions, banks and post offices), communication with locals, financial availability and fulfillment of expectations of living in Russia. The survey was anonymous and conducted by means of Google Forms. Results. The research revealed adaptive difficulties and cultural novelties for students in every domain, where the domain of post offices and banks services use appears to be the least problematic and constitutes 5% and 10% of respondents respectively. The domains of food/nourishment (75%), climate (46%) and dormitory residence (38%) emerged to be the most socioculturally unfamiliar. The participants also indicated language barrier as a sociocultural stressor hindering communication in everyday and academic life. Conclusion. Awareness of potential sociocultural adaptive stressors and practical implementation of the knowledge by university staff may help to facilitate the process of international students’ sociocultural adaptation and enhance the efficiency of work in multicultural university team.