Chinese Undergradates In The US: A Look At Socio-cultural Adaptation

The globalization of the world provides increased opportunities for cross-culturalinteractions between countries. Numerous organizations, especially multinationalcompanies, send employees, working as expatriates, to their overseas branches.Universities, like other organizations, are riding the trend of globalization and have beenrecruiting students from abroad. According to the Open Doors Report (2010), internationalenrollment growth was primarily driven by a30%increase in Chinese student enrollmentin the United States to a total of nearly128,000students, or more than18%of the totalinternational student population, making China the leading sending country. Recent yearshave witnesses a surge in Chinese undergraduate enrollment at U.S. universities from8,034Chinese undergraduates in2009to39,947Chinese undergraduates in2010.The increasing number of Chinese international undergraduates students place increasedemphasis on colleges and universities to ensure the success of Chinese internationalundergraduate students’ adjustment to local cultures.Under this context, this study examined the relationships between Chinese internationalundergraduate students’ ethnic identity, self-efficacy, uncertainty avoidance, and theirsocio-cultural adjustment. A total of62Chinese undergraduate students (aged17to22years) from12universities and colleges across the U.S. completed the online survey of5variable scales. As hypothesized, a positive relationship between students’ self-efficacy andtheir socio-cultural adjustment (r=.47, p <.01) was demonstrated. Chinese internationalundergraduate students’ uncertainty avoidance had a negative relationship with theirself-efficacy（r (62)=-.22, p <.05）, but a positive relationship with ethnic identity(r (62)=.23, p <.05). The hypotheses that Chinese international undergraduates’ ethnic identityand uncertainty avoidance are negatively correlated to their socio-cultural adjustment werenot supported in the present study.