In the current era of globalization, there are an increasing number of students seeking higher education outside their native culture (Rienties & Tempelaar, 2013). Educational experiences in host cultures provide an opportunity to expand an individual’s intercultural knowledge and worldview, which in turn enhances personal development and future career prospects (Rienties et al., 2013). However, the process of adapting to a new culture can be difficult and stressful (Berry, 2005; Ward et al., 2001).
As scientists note, international students in the process of adapting to a foreign cultural environment experience a sense of loneliness (Hunley, 2010; Wang, et al., 2015), face difficulties caused by changes to their usual way of life (Szabo et al., 2016), discrimination (Poyrazli & Lopez, 2007) and experience cultural differences (Hirai et al., 2015).
Acculturation includes a wide range of patterns of behavior, attitudes, values, norms, personality characteristics that can change in contact (Ward, 2016). Acculturation orientations link the conditions of acculturation with its results. The acculturation model proposed by D. Berry (Berry, 1997) has become widespread. It describes four strategies that result from a combination of attitudes towards preserving a culture of origin and contacts with the majority group. These are assimilation (rejection of one’s own culture in favor of the culture of the majority), separation (preservation of only one’s own culture), integration (preservation of the key features of one’s own culture while simultaneously accepting elements of the majority culture) and marginalization (rejection of both cultures). Acculturation strategies are interconnected with its results – psychological and sociocultural adaptation (Berry, 2011).
Socio-cultural adaptation is defined as the ability to understand the culture of the host country and function properly in a new cultural environment (Kim, 1988, 2001; Ward, 2001). During socio-cultural adaptation, the individual experiences cultural stress (Berry & Annis, 1974), which can be alleviated by social support (Adelman, 1988). Researchers argue that an additional aspect of cross-cultural adaptation that needs to be studied is psychological adaptation, though they highlight the close relationship between cultural stress and human mental health. People with high levels of acculturative stress are at risk of experiencing not only depression (Mui & Kang, 2006; Rahman & Rollrock, 2004), but also suicidal ideation (Hovey & King, 1996). Further research has shown that acculturative stress is correlated with high levels of anxiety and depression in international students (Crockett et al., 2007).
In our study, we use ethnic identity, cultural distance and acculturation strategies as predictors of sociocultural adaptation. Ethnic identity refers to an individual’s sense of self to belong to a particular ethnic group (Liebkind et al., 2016). The ratio of ethnic identity is comparable to the strategies of acculturation in D. Berry’s model. Integration corresponds to bicultural identity - these are expressed ethnic identities. Separation identity is a combination of a pronounced ethnic identity and lack of identification with the majority, assimilated identity is a pronounced identification with the majority, marginalized identity is a lack of identification with both groups (Liebkind et al., 2016). Bicultural identity is the most beneficial for adaptation (Berry, 2011; Nguyen & Benet-Martínez, 2013). Cultural distance (how dissimilar cultures are in language, religion, and values) has regularly been found to affect the successful adaptation of immigrants (Ward & Kennedy, 1993; Ward & Searle, 1991). The consistent finding is that adaptation is more difficult when the cultural differences between groups are large (Berry, 2005).
The results of many studies show that the severity of culture shock is positively correlated with cultural distance. The more the new culture resembles the native one, the less traumatic is the adaptation process. To assess similarity of cultures, the index of cultural distance proposed by I. Babiker and co-authors is used, which includes language, religion, family structure, level of education, material comfort, climate, food, clothing, etc.
A. Fairnham, S. Bochner conducted an empirical study of the dependence of social difficulties on cultural distance (Furnham, Bochner, 1986, p. 56). According to three key criteria - religion, language and climate of the country from which the students came, they were divided into three groups according to closeness to the culture of Great Britain. The first group of “related” cultures comprised the countries of Northern and Central Europe, the second - the “mid-range” countries of Southern Europe and Latin America; the group of culturally “distant” was made up of the countries of Asia and Africa. The study confirmed the hypothesis that the greater the difference between the culture host society and culture of the country of origin, the more difficulties are experienced in everyday social situations. The most difficult situations were found to establish and maintain personal relationships with representatives of local culture. The foreign students turned out to have quite a few friends among the British, and contacts with the locals were mostly utilitarian. The authors attribute this to a lack of social skills required for effective communication in another culture.
The concept of cultural distance is used to position cultural groups relative to each other depending on how similar or different they are. When conducting a comparative analysis of cultures based on their similarity (differences), the classification of the universal aspects of cultural groups is taken as a basis. According to D. Berry, the distance between cultures is directly proportional to the number of changes that a migrant will have to make in his behavior in order to adapt to a new cultural environment (Berry, 2003).
Thus, in our study, we use ethnic identity, cultural distance and acculturation strategies as conditions for the adaptation of young migrants from Arab countries.