Journal of Educational Sciences > Volume 2, No. 1, 1990

Studying Abroad and Cross-Cultural Contact / Ibrahim. H. Al-Quayid

Studying abroad for Arab and Muslim students constitutes one of many important channels of contact between the Islamic and the Western civilizations. This channel has some social and psychoIogical impact on students and can result in attitudinal and behavioral changes. This study aims at investigating the cultural side of studying abroad and the resulted attitudinal and behavioral changes among students.
The study concludes that students studying abroad go through four different stages of adjustment. The first is the excitment stage which marks the beginning of the cultural contact between the student and the western culture. The second is the culture shock stage which results from the loss of commonly perceived and understood social signs and norms and the realization of cultural differences between the stu- dent’s culture and the western one. The third is the partial adjustment stage which indicates the beginning of the actual dealing with and understanding of the culture of the new social environment. In this stage gradual adjustment takes place and the student chooses one of three strategies of adjustment; assimilation , rejection or wise adaptation. And the last stage of adjustment is known as the final stage. In this stage the student is considered to be fully adjusted with some changes in attitudes and behavior resulting from this interesting experience  in cross-cultural contact.