Relationship Between Acculturation Strategies And Subjective Well-being Among German Students In China

This study examines the relationship between acculturation strategies and subjective well-being among German students in China and investigates the role of self-esteem as well.The study includes two parts. With questionnaire the researcher first made comparisons of different acculturation strategies that 271 foreign students in China prefer in different living domains, such as marriage and friends-making. Later on the importance was laid on the examination of relationship among German students' acculturation strategies, subjective well-being and self-esteem.148 German students participated in the study. First using emotional and cognitive indices as criteria in hierarchical multiple regression analysis, we found interactive effects of self-esteem and integration, assimilation, separation or marginalization strategy, which confirmed the hypothesized moderating effect of self-esteem.In addition, the author also surveyed 123 students from the USA, South Korea, Japan, etc. Selecting some of them into three groups-the USA, Asia and Germany, we compared the differences among diverse cultural backgrounds in acculturation strategies, self-esteem and subjective well-being.In the interview research the author selected two representative German students in Zhejiang University, striving to learn the specific problems they come across during the acculturating process, trying to find the in-depth cultural roots at the same time. In consideration of the shortage and limitation of the present study, suggestions for related research in future were proposed as follows:(a) to explore the effect of implicit self-esteem in the relationship between acculturation strategies and subjective well-being; (b) to explore the effects of more moderating and mediating variables; (c) to extend the sample to more countries.