Cultural Adjustment of International Students

Abstract

Cultural adjustment involves both acculturation and assimilation. In the present study cultural adjustment is conceptualized similarly to Mendoza and Martinez's Model of Acculturation (1981). It is suggested that cultural adjustment is a process of multiple interacting factors distinguished by different behavioral, cognitive, affective and demographic attributes and by different levels, varying from cultural assimilation to cultural transmutation. A total of 159 students, 92 international and 67 U.S. students, responded to mailed questionnaires. The main findings suggest that cultural adjustment is simultaneously affected by employment level, language spoken at home, having both American and native friends, internal decision making, and work value. The study supports a native-extinction, host-association model of cultural adjustment.