Open AccessMetasynthesis Regarding the Sociocultural Adaptation of International University
Author(s) -
Astrid Vanessa Sarmiento Quiñones,
Claudio Bustos,
Maidelyn Díaz Pérez,
Diana Lucía Peralta,
Natalia Zañartu,
Jorge Iván Vergara del Solar
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4623
Subject(s) - sociocultural evolution , adaptation (eye) , intrapersonal communication , psychology , context (archaeology) , empirical research , sociology , social psychology , interpersonal communication , paleontology , philosophy , epistemology , neuroscience , anthropology , biology
This study centers on the sociocultural adaptation experience of international students in academic life and daily life. Responses to the guiding question of what differences and similarities are discernible in the sociocultural adaptation processes that international university students experience in the university versus outside university in the receiving society. It presents a metasynthesis of 12 empirical studies that apply qualitative methodologies to the study of international university students’ sociocultural adaptation, which were published in scientific journals indexed in Ebscohost, WOS and Scopus from January 2012 to March 2019. The metasynthesis results indicate that sociocultural adaption involves: (1) situations of shock that arise in the two environments of academic and daily life with specific challenges proper to each one, and (2) the deployment of varying intrapersonal and social resources in each context. Academic and daily life can be considered as necessarily linked to sociocultural adaptation given the compensatory function observed in relational dynamics of students as they move between the two settings. The emphasis of the research on presenting sociocultural adaptation as a primarily negative process, the theoretical implications of separating academic life from daily life, and the relevance of exploring the role of social networks in students’ daily life are discussed.