Academic Adaptation,cultural Adaptation And Cultural Identity Of African Students Studying In The Master Degree Program In China

At present,increasing number of African students are coming to study in China,which is part of China's diplomatic strategy to provide opportunities for young people from developing countries to study abroad.This group studies in the environment of“heterogeneous culture” and they will encounter many challenges in their academic and cultural life.Their academic adaptation and cultural adaptation will affect their recognition of Chinese culture.Studying the academic adaptation and cultural adaptation of African Master's students in China,and on this basis exploring the status of cultural identity,is of great significance to reflect on the practice of African students' program.Academic adaptation refers to the process of learning subjects' active adjustment to achieve a balance with the learning environment;cultural adaptation refers to the process of changing knowledge,beliefs and values that occurs in the context of the new cultural environment;cultural identity refers to a continuous process of individual consensus,recognition and acceptance of a culture in terms of conception,psychology and behavior.By reviewing the literature,it could be found that scholars have researched the cultural adaptation of African students in China.Nevertheless,the qualitative research based on the depth interviews aiming at the group of African Master's students in China from regular institutions of higher learning in China remains to be deepened.This study selected 12 African students studying in the Master of English program in China from school Z as respondents and conducted semi-structured English interviews with them.Afterwards,the interview recording was transcribed to English data and was translated to Chinese data,and a corpus of 55,204 Chinese characters has been constructed.Utilizing the qualitative analysis software NVivo11.0 as an auxiliary tool,the collected interview data has been coded at three levels according to the methodology of the grounded theoretical study.In line with the previous theoretical presupposition,three-level coding dimensions of “academic adaptation”,“cultural adaptation” and “cultural identity”have been studied,and the corpus have been cluster analyzed.As can be observed from the node level,material information table and rectangular tree structure diagram,in terms of academic adaptation,the interviewed students talked most about their perspectives on the differences in teaching between China and Africa.Such as differences in teaching methods and differences in hardware facilities and software facilities.In the aspect of cultural adaptation,discussion topics of religious belief and social interpersonal communication have been discussed more frequently by the interviewed students.In the aspect of cultural identity,it mainly involves the self-identification of African students in China and their recognition of Chinese culture.By studying the interview corpus,the study found that in terms of academic adaptation,the challenges encountered by African Master's students in English program are mainly related to the acquisition of Chinese,the interaction between teachers and students,and the mastery of learning tools.In terms of cultural adaptation,the majority of African Master's students in China are generally not adapted to the living environment of“heterogeneous culture”.Particularly,in interpersonal communication,the differences in languages and religious beliefs are important reasons for the gap between African students and Chinese students.In terms of cultural identity,African students in China have a strong sense of the ethnic identity,and they have,more or less,shown sensitive and suspicious psychological characteristics for various reasons.Therefore,their identity to Chinese culture is limited.However,with their increasingly rich experience of studying abroad,thecultural identity of African students in China will be observably stronger.On account of the study as above,in order to help African students adapt to the academic and cultural life in the new environment and to enhance their identity of Chinese culture,colleges and universities need to strengthen the acquisition of Chinese language for foreign students,facilitating them carry out their academic research smoothly;to establish students' mutual aid society,enriching the cultural life of the students at university;to optimize student management style,laying emphasis on improving the ability to serve students;to build social network support,so as to deepen the psychological sense of belonging among international students.