More than the sum of its parts: The story of a cosmopolitan third culture social support group

Research on the relationship between cross-cultural adaptation and social support is rich and widespread. However, little information exists on the creation and implementation of a third culture as a means of facilitating the acculturation process. The purpose of the current work is to discover what kind of 'third culture' is created and/or exists when groups of international students build social support networks that are not divided along home and host cultural lines. The 'third culture' has been defined as a collectively determined communicative space that is created when individuals of different cultural backgrounds come together and form a relationship within a different cultural context. In the case of this work, the context in which the third culture is embedded is conceptualized by cosmopolitan identity theory. While the third culture is widely acknowledged to exist within the dynamics of cross-cultural relationship-building, little research exists applying such a construct to sojourners relocated to foreign cultures.;The current study links these constructs through an ethnographic examination of a group of consisting primarily of international students that exists at a large southwestern state university. The following research questions are posed: What does a multicultural social support group look like? How does membership in multicultural social support groups influence the process of cross-cultural adaptation? How is social support created and maintained by such groups?;Using a social constructivist epistemological approach and qualitative methods such as participant observation and interviewing, a two year ethnography is described that includes the formation, activities, and impacts that this group has on the adaptation processes of its members. The results reconceptualize the construct of the third culture as a multi-culture and a meta-third culture, indicating that such groups develop strong networks of social, tangible, emotional, and informational support, which lead to opportunities to integrate within the host-culture, thus easing the cross-cultural adjustment process. Group members identify their group as a third culture and a cosmopolitan group, and cite their membership in the group as positively influencing their experiences in the US. The implications of this research can improve cross-cultural training and cultural adaptation strategies for international students and sojourners.