| dc.description.abstract | This international research study is about mapping German international students’ struggles when studying in Chinese universities, applying a cross-cultural adaptation perspective. Students from Asian countries currently dominate the international student community in China. For this reason, research on internationalization tend to represent Asian students’ opinions, and other voices from outside Asia are somewhat silenced. In this study, the focus is on how and for what reasons German exchange students are struggling while living and studying in China, and how their struggles in some ways may differ from international students from Asia. The aim of this study is to map and understand German students’ main struggles whilst on shorter one year exchange at a Chinese university. The findings are presented in three categories: Study life struggles, Everyday life struggles and Social life struggles. These three areas of struggles are then set up against and discussed with newer research based knowledge on the struggle faced by international students in general. Some possible reasons for why the German exchange students are facing particular struggles have been explored. The theoretical framework combines cultural theories, cross-cultural adaptation theories and cultural differences, along with social learning theory employed analyzing the data. The study is applying a mix-method research (MMR) design, containing an online questionnaire survey and face-to-face interviews. The former aimed at mapping the struggles German exchange students are facing and how do these struggles differ from those of general international students. The latter aims at exploring the possible reasons for the struggles reported in the survey. The main argument put forward is that German exchange students tend to struggle more than general international students in all aspects of study life, everyday life and social life, and that their struggles are a combination of environmental, cognitive and behavioral reasons. | eng |