How Saudi Students Adjust to the Gender Environment in the United States: A Study of the Strategies Couples Us

This study examines how students from Saudi Arabia adjust to the gender environment of the United States. Saudi students come from a nation with a traditional and conservative gender climate that is guided by religious dictates. Other studies have identified some of the difficulties that Saudi students have when they encounter more liberal Western gender expressions. This study extends previous research by focusing on how couples adjust. In qualitative interviews with 20 Saudi students (10 couples), three broad categories of strategies emerged. First, Cultural Strategies capture the varied ways that the students tried to navigate every-day life in America (religion, education, food, dress, etc). Second, Gender Strategies address gender relations specifically and includes both adjustments prompted by American life (e.g., women driving) and challenges associated with the co-education of men and women. Finally, Social Strategies involve the decisions Saudi students make regarding their social life, which includes strategies for both reaching out to Americans and avoiding Americans. Taken together, the findings generally support previous research. But the focus on couples also provides new insights. Most importantly, the study finds that not only women but also men are affected by life in the United States. This is so especially when it comes to child care and household labor. Moreover, while several of the interviewed students anticipated bringing some of their new insights and experiences back home to Saudi Arabia (women's greater independence; greater opportunities for women to do meaningful work), in other ways their commitment to Saudi culture was strengthened (the modesty of women; no drugs and alcohol).