Acculturation is the process of psychological and behavioral change that individuals go through during and after intercultural contacts. Social media have become a major space for cross-cultural encounters, and are important venues of socialization for marginalized populations. Intercultural encounters on social media may benefit or detriment the…

This paper examines the academic and sociocultural adjustment processes, challenges, and coping strategies of Chinese students who studied at top Western universities prior to relocating to Hong Kong for PhD study. Through purposeful sampling, 30 individuals from one elite university in Hong Kong, the majority of whom won prestigious scholarships,…

Acculturation is an emerging field of inquiry in the multicultural context of Hong Kong. Behavioural acculturation focuses mainly on cultural practices such as language use, dietary preferences, customs and traditions, socialization and media consumption. Despite a phenomenal growth of research on the educational predicament of immigrant youth…

Mainland Chinese students' (MCSs') cross-cultural adaptation experiences in Hong Kong have remained under-researched. Our study investigates this phenomenon with a language and social psychology approach and explores the role of Cantonese ability and communication with locals. We invoked Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to investigate the…

As the volume of research on intercultural adaptation of international students (IAIS) increases significantly over the past decades, a systematic review of the diverse literature on a global scale and its development process becomes essential. This study conducted a thorough bibliometric analysis for the knowledge domain of IAIS research using…

Purpose: This paper aims to outline the experience of choosing an appropriate methodology from the potential qualitative methods for studying acculturative experiences amongst a group of non-Chinese young people in Hong Kong. It delineates the reasons for choosing phenomenography for researching their lived acculturative experiences. The paper…

This study investigates Chinese international students' acculturation strategies and pragmatic intentions to address identity conflicts in Hong Kong study experiences through a developmental lens. We treat conflicts and stressors as indicators of active commitments and the process of engagement as strategic, goal-oriented, intentional investments…

A growing body of research on identity and language learning has investigated how immigrant learners construct their identities in the process of acquiring a second language (L2). Much of the research, however, is situated in Western contexts. This study looks at how three Thai immigrants acquired an L2, Cantonese, and constructed their identities…

Purpose: Developing a sense of belonging among immigrant youth in multicultural contexts has attracted significant attention from scholars during the last few decades. Studies have already underscored how various educational factors hinder or facilitate students' sense of belonging to the school or the larger society. Although most students in…

Despite widely reported 'Mainland-Hong Kong conflicts', recent years have witnessed progressive growth of Mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong universities. This study aims to explore the role of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the cross-cultural adaptation of such a group of sojourning students. Structural equation modelling showed that the…

Research on university-educated Muslim women in different cultural contexts has displayed an intricate and paradoxical connection between experiences of higher education and identity mediation. A traditional model conceptualizes Muslim female university students as 'rebels' against their heritage religion and culture. Recent developments in the…

Despite evidence of the acculturation benefits of social media engagement with mainstream culture, there is limited understanding of what motivates or demotivates ethnic minorities' social media engagement with mainstream culture. Adopting the theoretical construct of investment, this study interviewed 31 ethnic minority secondary school students…

The relationship between history education and political education in Asian societies is an underexplored topic. Politics have deeply shaped the development of history education in Hong Kong, as in many other societies around the world. Hong Kong history education reforms have been criticized for providing a new form of national political…

Quantitative research on the linguistic acculturation of sojourners in non-Western and multilingual social contexts remains scarce. Revising the Framework of Acculturation Variables (FAV), we propose a parsimonious model exploring the effect of acculturation conditions (trilingual language usage and perceived discrimination), orientations (social…

Parents, teachers and policy makers are concerned about how immigrant students acquire the mainstream language and achieve academic success. Therefore, researchers face an urgent need to examine the broader ecological factors that influence immigrant students' academic identity construction and mainstream language learning. This study investigates…