Minority Undergraduates’ Life, Academic And Cultural Adaptation:Case Study Of A University

Minority undergraduate is an important part of university student. After entering the school, they often encounter many challenges in adapting themselves into the main body of the heterogeneous nationality - Han. There are theoretical and practical benefits to study their living conditions, academic activities and adaptions into the main culture. Benefits also extend to understand their individual development and cultural identity under the support of policy.According to the existing research, the life adaptation is a continuous process in which individual changes his/her behavior in order to maintain the interaction between himself/herself and the physical environment. Academic adaption is defined as an individual actively adjusts himself/herself to achieve a balanced state in the study environment. Cultural adaption refers to a process of change in knowledge, religious and values in the new environment. It can be found in the literatures that research on cultural adaptation of minority students is relatively abundant. In addition, culture theories such as culture shock, culture interruption and culture change are mature enough. However, researches on life experience, academic and cultural adaptation of minority undergraduates need to be strengthened. Positive Policy (Affirmative Policy) refers to a federal regulation which is designed to eliminate discriminations on minorities and females in employment and education. The Positive Policy in China is called "Ethnic Minorities Preferential Policy". This policy is a way of support and compensation for the minorities.In order to explore the life, academic and cultural adaptations of minorities in the university,15 minority students were selected by the researcher. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on these 15 students and enough database was established. The interview data was further coded using the qualitative analysis software Nvivo 10.0. The interview materials and coding were processed and visualized in Nvivo. It can be seen from the nodal level, the table of material information and tree mapping that the interviewed students were mainly focused on the nodes of "adaptation in the nature", "adaptation in the living environment", "classmates", "learning ability", "learning content is too hard", "ethnic culture barriers" and "ethnic recognition". A tree mapping code was drawn based on their sources and then used to analyze each individual. The analysis on Pearson factor was performed based on the source of materials. It was found that the coefficient within the interview materials is above 0.9, which indicates a relatively high reliability of this research.Further analysis on the interview materials shows that, it is very difficult for students from the border areas to adapt themselves into the "heterogeneous" environment. This can be seen that, especially in the interpersonal communications, religion is a very important factor that estranges minority students from Han students. Academically, the main challenges for minority students are language, classroom environment and learning content. In addition, minority students show a strong sense of ethnic recognition and limited acknowledgement on the main Chinese culture. When they enter the heterogeneous environment, a sense of "other culture" was formed gradually, which further strengthens the self-consciousness of ethnic culture.Based on the research mentioned above, in order to help minority undergraduates adapt themselves into the new living, study and culture environment, and help them grow up better, universities should ensure that minority undergraduates can finish their education smoothly by accurately distributing the financial support. In addition, attention should be paid to improve their interpersonal skills. Multicultural education can be provided to support and help their studies. Also, encouragement should be given to the minority students and motivate them to participate activities in student associations. This can help them better adapt themselves into different culture.