Expatriate Students Research Articles

Happiness in the United Arab Emirates: conceptualisations of happiness among Emirati and other Arab students

How happiness is defined depends on who is asked. The prevailing views of happiness currently found in the literature tend to be Western and individualistic and shape what is viewed as normative. In this descriptive exploratory study, based in the United Arab Emirates, Emirati and other Arab expatriate students were asked to define happiness and describe how it is viewed by their cultures. Both groups defined happiness as a collective state generated through relationships with family and social groups, rather than through the self. It was also defined as an emotion and approach to life and involved religion and goal setting. Emiratis noted the presence of good governance as a contributor to happiness while other Arabs noted its absence. The findings enrich the current understanding of happiness and provide a preliminary view of what other cultures may consider to be happiness.

Self-medication and related health complaints among expatriate high school students in the United Arab Emirates

Self-medication, often without adult guidance, has been reported to be a common practice during adolescence. Similar to other preventable health-risk behaviors initiated in early adolescence, it has become a cause for concern universally. This study examines the prevalence of self-medication with both prescribed and non-prescribed (OTC) medications, related health complaints, sources of drugs, and sources of drug recommendation, and gender differences related to self-medication among expatriate high school students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 324 expatriate students through a validated, self-administered questionnaire and data was analyzed using SPSS 19 version. Means and proportions were calculated and Pearson Chi-square test of significance was used to analyze association among variables. Majority of the participating students, almost equally distributed by gender, was aged 16 to 17 years. The period prevalence rate of self-medication with prescribed and OTC medications were 89.2%, which did not vary with age, gender, ethnicity or parents' educational level. The most common sources of drug and drug recommendation were community pharmacies and parents respectively. Headache and fever were the common self-medicated conditions and consequently, analgesics and antipyretics were most commonly used both in the previous two weeks and the previous year prior to the survey. A high prevalence of self-medication with antibiotics (53%) and sedative/hypnotics (27%) was also observed. A female excess emerged for certain health complaints and use of medicines except for the use of anti-allergic and herbal/homeopathic drugs. This is the first study to explore self-medication practices among high school students in UAE and provides baseline data critical in creating awareness about the risks and benefits of self-medication. Health care providers, educators and parents should be actively involved in health education strategies for inculcating responsible self-medication practices in the adolescent population of UAE.

Disclosure of Gender Identity in Internet Forums: A Case Study of Saudi Arabian Forum Communication

Internet discussion forums provide opportunities for largely anonymous communication among participants. The extent to which these opportunities are taken up is of particular interest in cultures where gender relations are highly regulated and cross-gender communication is strictly limited, such as in Saudi Arabian society. This article studies participation in a public discussion forum of expatriate Saudi students. It focuses on the nature of information (whether accurate or not) that participants choose to reveal about themselves, and its effect on the forum participation. Particular attention is paid to whether and how the gender of the participants is revealed. The analysis demonstrates that few participants take advantage of the possibility of not revealing gender. Rather, gender is emphasized in most usernames and can usually be deduced from the message content. Although there is no pressure to reveal name, age, marital status, etc., reactions to the rare messages where the gender of the writer is not indicated show that clues to gender are considered essential to all but the briefest exchanges. This encourages participants to limit contact with participants of the opposite sex, as a result of which the forum communication remains largely gender segregated.

Post exposure prophylaxis of HIV transmission after occupational injuries in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre, Malawi, 2003 – 2008

Health care worker (HCW) in Malawi may acquire HIV infection through occupational injuries, in particular since HIV prevalence among inpatients and incidence of occupational injuries are high. A post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) programme for occupational injuries at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) commenced in 2003. We performed an audit of this programme from 2003 through 2008. 203 Occupational injuries were reported. The majority were needle stick injuries (76.3%). Half of the clients were in a training position. A dual ART regimen was most frequently prescribed. Triple therapy use increased over time and was more frequent in expatriate students. Many nurses and clinical officers were not fully vaccinated for HBV. Based on previous incidence data, occupational injuries were likely to be underreported. Data on side effects were incomplete, however PEP discontinuation due to side effects occurred only twice. Follow up visits were poorly attended, therefore the efficacy of PEP could not be evaluated. Prevention efforts for occupational injuries should be increased and specifically target HCWs in training positions. Measures to improve quality of the PEP programme include effective publicity campaigns, compulsory Hepatitis B vaccination and active tracing of HCWs who default follow up after PEP.

Addressing the Challenges of Cross-Cultural Understanding through Service Learning in Higher Education: The Oman Experience

Globally, teachers need to expand their knowledge of other peoples and cultures. As a case in point, Oman is challenged by a problem of separation between national and expatriate populations. Expatriate students attend either international or expatriate community schools, whereas Omani children can only attend government schools or Arabic/English private schools. The teacher education program at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman was able to implement a service learning project that helped students cross cultural boundaries while improving their own English language skills. Using a mixed-method approach in data analysis, this study discusses the experiences of thirty EFL student teachers involved in the experiment. Expatriate teachers and principals had expressed a need for their students to learn more about Omani culture. In response, student teachers prepared 45 cultural kits that included written reports, presentations and artefacts, which they presented to classes. Not only did expatriate teachers and K-12 students learn about Omani culture, but more importantly, student teachers developed new cultural awareness about the expatriate populations with whom they seldom have an opportunity to interact or exchange ideas and cultural values. The ‘ELT [English Language Training] Multicultural Awareness Transaction Model’ has application potential not only in teacher education, but also in EFL or ESL classes where cultural exchange is important.

Childhood academic language environments of Japanese sojourners: a principal components analysis study

This paper is an exploratory study of the childhood academic language environments (CALEs) of bilingual Japanese expatriate students. Student (n=28) and parent (n=67) surveys were adapted from the Life History Calendar (Caspi et al. 1996) to gather retrospective CALE data at a Japanese–English bilingual high school. Principal Components Analysis was conducted to derive three underlying CALE components, each representing educational intervention strategies. These three components were comprised of primary loadings that depict the respective aspects of the Japanese transnational experience with their children's supplementary education during their overseas sojourns and reveal families' needs for: L1 maintenance communities, L2 acquisition support, and a means to convert their children's bilingual skills into academic credentials that are adequate for both L1 and L2 contexts. Principal components were thus interpreted as sojourning families' three approaches to environmental structuring: a Japanese Cultural Community Approach, a Quasi-Bilingual Approach, and a Japanese Test-oriented Approach. Implications are drawn, both for the sojourning community and for future research needs.

Expatriate Students’ L2 Writing Retention and Attrition back in the L1 Environment

Expatriate Students’ L2 Writing Retention and Attrition back in the L1 Environment

Expatriate Students’ L2 Writing Retention and Attrition back in the L1 Environment

Expatriate Students’ L2 Writing Retention and Attrition back in the L1 Environment

A Large Cluster of Imported Plasmodium falciparum Malaria among Nigerian Expatriate Students

Singapore reported the elimination of malaria in 1982, but this country remains vulnerable to imported malaria. We describe a large cluster of 16 cases of imported Plasmodium falciparum malaria in visiting Nigerian students. More than half were asymptomatic and diagnosed only on screening. Although early diagnosis and treatment of patients averted local transmission of disease, our report illustrates the vulnerability of malaria-free countries to the introduction of malaria in this age of increasing globalization and ease of travel.

TEACHING NOTES

The text of the article is available in the PDF.

Ameliorating culture shock in Japanese expatriate children in the US

This study identifies the variables that may predict the level of culture shock, grades in school, and anxiety level over returning to Japan among 240 Japanese expatriate students living in southern California. The students attended an American school on the weekdays, and a Japanese supplementary school on Saturdays. The study showed that the most effective predictors for the mitigation of culture shock, higher grades in American school, higher grades in Japanese school and anxiety over returning to Japan were, respectively, the perceived favorableness of the relationship with American teachers and friends, high self-rating of their English language proficiency, perceived favorable relationship with their Japanese teacher, and a favorable perception of their father's English language proficiency. These findings may be useful to parents, and to Japanese and American teachers, in assisting students to make a less-stressful transition between home and host cultures. Also, this study indicates the possibility of a new phase in the study of culture shock which focuses on the role of family members and others routinely encountered outside the home in the reduction of culture shock.

International Examinations, National Systems and the Global Market

This paper is a report on preliminary investigations into the uses which national (as distinct from expatriate) students make of international school‐level qualifications. It reviews some of the qualifications that are available and the organisations that market them. Representative examples of data obtained from various schools offering these qualifications in different countries are presented and then discussed. Patterns from these examples indicate that those taking these examinations are invariably national elites, but their reasons for taking them do vary. While access to overseas universities is a reason for some, this is by no means universal and other reasons relate to perceptions of the educational quality of both the schools and the curricula and to the access that international qualifications may give to the international community. The need for a theoretical framework before further data collection and analysis is carried out is discussed and some possibilities are mentioned.

Syntax and morphology in language attrition: a study of five bilingual expatriate Swedes

This paper explores the attrition of different aspects of Swedish grammar. Empirical data from five bilingual expatriate students, who have lost parts of their first language due to a deactualization of Swedish, are compared to data from monolingual Swedish aphasic patients. The results indicate that some aspects of the grammar may be more affected than others in language attrition. The bilingual students' noun phrase morphology had undergone attrition, but not their word order. The examples from the aphasics displayed the opposite pattern: for them, word order attrition was combined with unaffected noun phrase morphology. Attrition of Swedish grammar is also discussed in relation to markedness conditions.

ACCURACY OF JUDGMENT OF VALUE SYSTEMS: A FIELD STUDY OF OWN AND ATTRIBUTED VALUE PRIORITIES IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Australian expatriate students and indigenous Niuginean students in the higher grades of secondary schools in Papua New Guinea ranked either the terminal or instrumental values from the Rokeach Value Survey, first for self then for the other group. Results indicated that there were distinctive differences in the average value systems pertaining to self when the two groups were compared and that neither group was able to make accurate judgments of the value priorities of the other. These results were discussed in terms of the various influences affecting value systems in different national groups, the effects of limited social contact on accuracy of judgment, and the difficulty of making accurate judgments about the value priorities of other groups considered in the aggregate.