ABSTRACT
The globalising currents that carry students around the world bring them not simply to academic institutions but also to the communities that surround and intersect with these institutions. For many students, participating in a new life within these communities is an important part of the experience they seek. Research indicates that the level of contact with local communities, particularly the student population, frequently disappoints international students. This chapter, which is included in Part II, presents research exploring international students’ transition experiences, in particular those of Chinese students in a New Zealand university. It examines the affordances provided by two domains external to the university – Christian groups and part-time jobs – which, from interview data, emerged as being significant to the students for feeling accepted, understanding and integrating aspects of the host culture and university study, and experiencing personal growth. It uses the affective-behavioural-cognitive (ABC) model (Zhou, Jindal-Snape, Topping, and Todman, 2008) to examine their accounts on these affective, behavioural, and cognitive planes.
