Intercultural Learning

Year Abroad

Benefits: Linguistic, Academic, Personal, Professional, Intercultural, Cultural

Berry - Domains of adaption:
Adaptation to the physical environment (e.g. climate, clothes, food)
Socio-cultural adaptation to norms and values of the host country
Adaptation to academic life
Psychological adaptation

Stages of adjustment:
U-curve (Lysgaard) - adjustment is felt to be easy and successful to begin with; then follows a „crisis“ in which one feels less well-adjusted, somewhat lonely and unhappy; finally one begins to feel better adjusted again, becoming more integrated into the foreign community



 Berry - Reactions to living abroad:

Assimilation (adjust to foreign culture, not maintaining own culture)
Integration (adjust to foreign culture and maintain own culture)
Separation (maintain own culture, not adjusting to foreign culture)
Marginalisation (not maintaining own culture or adapting to new one)

Culture Shock:
- Oberg 1960 - anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse i.e. words, gestures, facial expressions, customs or norms
- shock = misleading term - gradual phenomenon
- symptoms = extreme reactions to minor issues, especially anger, general fear and mistrust, retreat from other people, hostility towards the host culture and its people, increased desire for sleep, increased attention to hygiene, increased consumption of food and drinks

Coping Strategies:
- be prepared
- destressing methods -  listening to music, taking short vacations, jogging or sports in general, talks with friend

Quote:
Der aufgeschlossene Reisende tritt in eine fremde Welt, die dann rückwirkend auch die Selbstverständlichkeit seiner eigenen fremden Welt in Frage stellt. Er beginnt das Leben der anderen zu betrachten. Seine soziale Existenz ist gebrochen, und der Bruch wird zum Ansatzpunkt der Erkenntnis (Dahrendorf, 1963: 15).
(Translation) The open minded traveller enters a foreign world that then retroactively puts the implicitness of his own foreign world in question. He begins to contemplate the lives of others. His social existence is broken and this break acts as a starting point for awareness.