There is a consensus that the crises children encounter during the transition period might impact negatively on children's learning and development. However, from cultural-historical perspective, qualitative leap in development can hardly be achieved without crises. This paper, drawing upon cultural-historical theory as the framework and by using…

Through analysing data collected from interviews with 12 students and 7 teachers, observations, students' journals and other documents at a US high school, this qualitative study examines the sociocultural adaptation of "parachute kids" from mainland China. Emerging themes revealed adjustments to be made at three levels, namely,…

Using the notion of "flexible citizenship", this paper examines how Chinese international secondary school students accumulate and exchange different forms of capital as governed by their transnational social networks. This study draws on data from a 14-month ethnographic field study on the transnational lives of 11 Chinese students in a…

Social adjustment is one of the most difficult and long-lasting challenges for international students who study in a new country. This paper uses a case study of cooperative painting activity conducted in Australian setting, in which two Chinese and three other students from different countries participated, in order to assess the efficiency of…

We investigated how the knowledge and usage of two languages relate to sociocultural adjustment in bilingual adolescent samples from three ethnic groups in Indonesia (214 Javanese, 108 Toraja, and 195 Chinese adolescents; 272 females; M[subscript age] = 14.33 years). We tested a model specifying that the vocabulary knowledge of each language…

International students encounter academic and social adjustments different than those of their domestic peers. Of particular concern is language proficiency, specifically students' investment in continual language development throughout university study. In the current article, I present a comparative case study of two Chinese freshmen (Jenn,…

The global population of students pursuing studies abroad continues to grow, and consequently their intercultural experiences are receiving greater research attention. However, research into long-term student sojourners' academic development and personal growth is still in its infancy. A parallel mixed method study was designed to investigate the…

Due to the significant growth in Chinese students pursuing education abroad, there is an increasing trend for researchers to study Chinese international students' challenges, especially the challenges in social adjustment. However, only a few studies intend to design activities or supporting practices to solve these challenges. This study, drawing…

This research assesses the first cohort of pathway students' needs and their academic and sociocultural experiences at a US university. A needs analysis survey, individual student interviews, and a follow-up survey were used for data collection. Understanding lectures, completing assignments, and building social relationships with domestics were…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine language, academic, social-cultural and financial adjustments facing mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach: The current study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods and included over 300 mainland Chinese students from seven major universities in Hong Kong.…

This paper presents an empirical study of the social situations of first year Chinese students in one UK University. The study used in-depth interviews and constructivist grounded theory to investigate the social situations of 19 foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate students in 2004-05. This exploratory approach was informed by Siu's…