Cross-cultural adjustment is a process which you have to go through to function effectively and without alienation in a setting that does not recognize some or all of the assumptions and behavioral patterns that you take for granted.
It is normal to have some ups and downs during the period of transition to a new culture. You should try not to avoid these feelings; they are part of the adjustment process.
Culture shock does not happen all at once. It builds up gradually over a period of time, and looking back on the experience you will probably say that it was a source of personal growth and insight.
Women face unique challenges abroad. Understanding cultural differences in sex roles, verbal and non-verbal communication, and the reputation of foreign women can increase your safety and enrich your experiences.
When you first walk off the plane in you host country, you might look around and see signs that you cannot read and hear the people all around you speaking in a language that you cannot understand. For many of you, as panic sets in, your first thought might be to turn around and hop back on the plane that just brought you to this strange land. For others of you, you may feel a great sense of excitement, of eagerness to "begin," whatever that might mean to you. And for a handful of you returning to a place where you've been before, stepping off the plane might bring a sense of homecoming. As time goes by and you settle into your routine, register for classes, begin the process of making friends, and explore the area you now call home, you will be going through many emotional, psychological, and possibly physical changes. This is what is known as "cultural adjustment" or "cultural adaptation." You cannot avoid these changes, but if you recognize them when they occur, you will be better prepared to deal with their consequences.
The Importance of Defining "Culture"
The Implications of Cultural Adjustment
Culture Shock
Know What to Expect
Top 12 Tips for Study Abroad
Emerging Differences
Coping with Culture Shock
Will I "Lose" My Own Culture?
Intercultural Communication
Imposition of Personal Values
Influence of Time Within a New Culture
Some Tips to Aid Cultural Adjustment
Issues Specific to Women Studying Abroad
It is difficult to begin a discussion on cultural adjustment without first defining the word "culture" and what makes culture. According to American Heritage Dictionary, culture is defined as "the arts, beliefs, customs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought created by a peopleor group at a particular time." If you were to ask several different people what they thought culture meant, you might get a list like the one L. Robert Kohls did when he wrote Survival Kit for Overseas Living:
As described in the beginning, cultural adjustment is a continuous, on-going process. It never stops, and it varies from one individual to another and from one culture to another. The end process nearly always results in a change in the individual, and sometimes, in the setting. Your own personal adjustment process may require you to confront not only differences in your new culture but also your own cultural values and practices.
The concept of adjustment implies change. In cross-cultural adjustment, one is concerned with the changes in thinking and behavior required when moving from one cultural environment to another. In your case, you will be moving from your American culture to one overseas. The nature of the adjustment required depends on the nature of the differences between your original culture and the new one, and on the objectives you seek to complete in the new culture. The concept of adjustment assumes that you already have well established sets of behaviors for "operating" in your own culture. As you enter into new cultures, those patterns of behavior may no longer satisfy your needs. In developing new patterns of coping with your new environment,
you may experience varying degrees of disorientation and discomfort.This is called "culture shock."
Culture shock is not quite as sudden or as shocking as most people expect. It is part of the process of learning a new culture that, as you have seen already, is called "cultural adaptation" or "cultural adjustment." One definition of culture shock is:
The feeling of frustration and anxiety which arises when familiar cultural cues are suddenly removed and replaced by new and seemingly bizarre behavior.
-Lewis and Jugman, On Being Foreign
You may experience some discomfort before you are able to function well in your new setting. This discomfort is the "culture shock" stage of the adaptation process. The main thing to remember is that this is a very normal process that nearly everyone goes through; it may reduce any anxiety you are feeling just to recognize this. Just as you will bring with you overseas clothing and other personal items, you will also carry invisible "cultural baggage" when you travel, as was discussed in the previous chapter. (See What it means to be "American.") That baggage is not as obvious as the items in your suitcases, but it will play
a major role in your adaptation abroad. Cultural baggage contains the values that are important to you and the patterns of behavior that are customary in your culture. The more you know about your personal values and how they are derived from your culture, the better prepared you will be to see and understand the cultural differences you will encounter abroad.
Anticipating future events and possibilities often makes it easier to deal with them when they happen. For example, it helps to anticipate your departure and plan ways to maintain relationships with people at home while you are away. Be sure to allow ample time to say goodbye to all the people who are important to you, and plan how to keep in touch. This assures people that
you will continue to care about them.
Planning to stay in touch does not require a promise to write or telephone on a strict schedule, but it does help to establish a realistic interval between communications. You will be extremely busy getting settled and learning about your new environment, so it is essential that long periods between communications not alarm your family and friends at home.
Some surprises always await you when you arrive in a new place. People may walk and talk more quickly or slowly, traffic patterns may be confusing, and the environment may look different than expected. Such differences are easy to see and quickly learned. The housing arrangements at your university or college, the manner in which classes are taught, registration for courses, and other procedures may seem strange or confusing. The international student office is often the best place to go for help with such matters.
Studying abroad, however, means making big changes in your daily life. Generations of students have found that they go through a predictable series of stages as they adjust to living abroad. At first, although the new situation is a bit confusing, most students also find it to be exhilarating, a time of new experiences, sights, sounds, and activities. With so much to learn and absorb in the new culture, the initial period of settling in often seems like an adventure. During this time, you will tend to look for and identify similarities between your home culture and your host culture. The procedures may be different, but there are patterns, things you can learn and depend on. You may classify other aspects of the culture that seen unusual or even unattractive as curious, interesting, or "quaint." There will be many opportunities to meet people in your new community; such opportunities can be rewarding, but they also may present an expanded array of cultural puzzles.
Gradually, as you become more involved in activities and get to know the people around you, differences - rather than similarities- will become increasingly apparent to you. Those differences may begin to seem more irritating than interesting or quaint. Small incidents and difficulties may make you anxious and concerned about how best to carry on with academic and social life. As these differences emerge, they can be troubling and sometimes shocking. But "culture shock" usually grows little by little as you interact with other students, faculty, and people in the community. For most people it is a gradual process that culminates in an emotional state we call "culture shock"; it is seldom as dramatic as the term implies. Some common symptoms of culture shock are:
Students are often unaware of the fact that they are experiencing culture shock when these symptoms occur. There are ways to deal with this period, and often it helps to just to recognize that culture shock may lie behind your symptoms and feelings.
One way of dealing with culture shock is to step back from events that have bothered you, assess them, and search for appropriate explanations and responses. In this way, the very events that most disturb, frustrate, or confound you may become your best tools for learning your host culture. Try the following:
Throughout the period of cultural adaptation, take good care of yourself. Take short, fun trips if possible, exercise and get plenty of rest, write letters and/or telephone home, eat good food, do things you enjoy with friends. Try to take special notice of the things you particularly enjoy about living in the host culture.
Although it can be disconcerting and a little scary at times, the "shock" gradually eases as you begin to understand the new culture. It is useful to realize that often the reactions and perceptions of others toward you - and you toward them - are not personal evaluations but are based on a clash of cultural values. The more skilled you become in recognizing how and when cultural values and behaviors are likely to come in conflict, the easier it becomes to make adjustments that can help you to avoid serious difficulties or frustrations.
Sometimes students worry about "losing their culture" if they become too well adapted to the host culture. Don't worry: it is virtually impossible to "lose" the culture in which you were raised, particularly during a relatively short time abroad. In fact, learning about a new culture often increases your understanding of and appreciation for your own culture. Try not to resist the
opportunity to become bicultural, able to function competently in two different cultural environments.
Just as culture shock derives from the accumulation of cultural clashes, so an accumulation of small successes can lead to more effective interactions within the new culture. As you increase your abilities to manage and understand the new social system, practices that recently seemed so strange will become less puzzling. Eventually you will adapt sufficiently to do your best in your studies and social life and to relax and fully enjoy the experience. And you will recover your sense of humor!
Perhaps the major contributor to unease in a foreign environment is the increased difficulty, or even impossibility, of communicating what you wish to communicate and of receiving the information you wish to receive. You will bring your own communication habits, both verbal and non-verbal, that sometimes do not transcend cultural limits. Studies of intercultural communication have shown that the amount of time and energy needed for simple communication increases rather dramatically as cultural differences increase, even excluding differences in language. Your gestures and other non-verbal cues can act, unbeknownst to you, as hindrances to communication. Your perceptions of any given person or situation can be quite different from the other person's perception.
You should try to recognize that other cultures my use different verbal and non-verbal communication methods. Body language, the use of "personal space" when talking, and other non-verbal communication can be very different from what you are used to in the United States. Likewise, some cultures are not nearly as frank, sarcastic, or confrontational when discussing certain topics. Sometimes things are implied in conversation but not actually voiced. It is important to remember that differences in communication styles are just that - different. You should avoid making judgements about a person's rudeness or lack thereof until you understand how verbal and nonverbal communication styles differ in you host culture. You will be studied and possibly judged on your own communication style.
A very good resource to search out is the series of books entitled Culture Shock, offered for most countries in the world. These books explain in detail why the people in a particular culture do, say, and think the unique things they do, and help you to understand what you are experiencing so that you can better adapt to it.
The tendency of people to impose their own values and assumptions onto people in the new or host culture usually inhibits cross-cultural understanding. While you are abroad you should avoid making definitive, prejudicial judgements that may result from your own cultural responses. You try your best to be open-minded and receptive to different ideas, concepts, and behaviors.A certain amount of "cultural self-analysis" might reveal much about your own motivations and value system; such knowledge can contribute to increased communication skills, increased acceptance and understanding of others, and more productive interactions, even back in your own culture. Until you have acquired enough self-knowledge to realize the true extent to which your outward personality is shaped by cultural habits and values, you will not be completely capable of comprehending or learning from the cultural habits and values of a different society.
Cross-cultural adaptation is a continuing process, with continuous evolution of insights, knowledge, physical skills, and emotional skills. While it is possible to live for years in a new culture and never be affected by it, most of those involved in cross-cultural adjustment never cease to learn from the experience. It is important for you to be flexible with newfound knowledge, to
be prepared to discover that any single piece of information might not have universal applicability in the culture. Language learning provides an example: you will often learn new words or terms and then, until you learn more, you may use that new vocabulary in inappropriate situations.
It is also possible to misunderstand cultural generalities and misapply the generalization. A non-American, perhaps, after perceiving with some discomfort that "Americans are frank," could misapply the insight and behavein a given situation in a way that Americans would actually perceive to be rude. One possible reaction you might have to living for some length of time in the new culture is withdrawing from it, isolation yourself from what you perceive to be the most threatening aspects of it, and perhaps clinging to people from and material representations of your own culture. Another possible reaction is to view negatively all aspects of the new culture, to belittle it, to consider its norms and values inferior to those of your own culture.
A more positive reaction is to assume or take on many of the new culture's norms, especially those involved in expressing yourself to others both in image and in language. As the length of time in the new culture grows, your ability to learn from your experiences should increase, as should your awareness of your own culturally influenced assumptions and of your personal motivations and value systems.
(from Transitions Abroad International Resource Guide No. 43)
American women are taught to be adventuresome, independent, and eager to meet people. We are used to being active, talking with people we don't know, making friends quickly, going out at night. We want to make the most of our time overseas and become involved in a variety of activities. Yet, in many parts of the world the role of women is to stay at home. Friends are
often made through family ties, not at school or work or in a bar at night. And there are often strong differences between how women are expected to act in public and in private. Dress, behavior, activity, eye contact, and topics of conversation are shaped by unspoken cultural norms. And then here we come...traveling alone or in groups, frequenting bars and clubs, making eye contact with men we don't know. The non-verbal messages we send may surprise us. Media images of Madonna and the stars of TV shows like Baywatch and Melrose Place have created powerful, lingering stereotypes of American women. And as we jog in the streets of Cairo, wear shorts in Turkey, and smile at men we don't know in Mexico, we may be unintentionally reinforcing these stereotypes.
Despite your personal beliefs about what women should have the right to do around the world, you need to reach a balance between maintaining your identity and respecting the culture you are visiting. You might want to slow down and consider what could be gained by packing away your jeans and wearing a sari in India, staying at home with the family instead of going to a club in Tokyo, or taking the time to talk with the grandmother selling flowers at the local market. While the most obvious things you take with you abroad are your nationality and your gender, one of the best tools you can carry is cultural sensitivity and awareness. With this type of knowledge backing you up, you may be able to break some stereotypes as you travel. Here are a few tips for gaining cultural sensitivity as a woman traveling abroad:
Many women travelers experience some degree of sexual harassment, be it in verbal forms, gestures, pinches, or other physical encounters. This is not to say that such occurrences don't happen in the U.S., but that being a foreign traveler is often enough to mark a woman as an appealing target for such behavior. The challenge for women travelers who are victims of harassment is
in learning to cope with the problem and still maintain a positive crosscultural experience. It can be quite easy to condemn an entire culture based on a few unpleasant encounters.
Barbara Baker, a teacher of cross-cultural counseling at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, says sexual harassment abroad may be particularly frustrating to American women because of their own ingrained cultural expectations. "In American culture emphasis is placed on individual rights, freedoms, and choices. American women grow up with the expectation that they can make choices and be responsible for themselves." Not all cultures share this concept of individualism. A woman abroad is not necessarily viewed as an individual, but as a representative of a larger group. Often these representations are associated with stereotypes, such as the "easy" or "loose" American woman looking for a good time. Someone who has never really known an American woman before may rely on these stereotypes for definition. "Stereotypes of American women as sex objects are influenced by a myriad of factors: movies, advertisements, popular culture. Media is very powerful," Baker explains. "It may be a shock [to an American woman] to be perceived as something different than what she is. She becomes a representative of a mythical culture." Maria Hope, a study abroad advisor at the University of Iowa, cautions students who are going abroad that certain stereotypes will proceed them. "American women have a reputation for getting involved in sexual relationships. Physical intimacy is more overtly accepted in North American culture, so an [American] female student is seen as 'easy prey.'"
Stereotyping is not the only factor working against women in foreign environments. According to Baker, a woman entering a new society is sometimes viewed as a non-member who does not fit the norms of how women behave in that culture, and thus men may act differently toward her: "It can be an opportunity for men to experiment with behaviors and push limits."
A woman has options when confronted with an atmosphere of harassment and can take steps to avoid or minimize such encounters. Baker advises women to be aware of the potential for harassment when entering a foreign place. "Expect conflicts and misunderstandings," she said. "Learn all you can about the culture you are visiting, and have an awareness of how women
are perceived within that culture." Hope says she advises students to be prepared to receive attention based on their appearance when abroad. Students should be aware that they are seen differently and appear differently in another culture. Some travelers suggest adjusting certain behaviors, body language, and dress to blend into the host culture. This does not mean giving up personal beliefs and habits or denying one's own cultural heritage, but assimilating some attitudes of the new culture can bring a sense of "belonging" and confidence.
Many women strongly advise having a constant awareness of their surroundings when traveling. Being alert, looking confident,
traveling with a companion, avoiding direct eye contact with strangers, and taking no unnecessary risks such as hitchhiking
or walking alone at night are common pieces of advice in avoiding unwanted encounters.
Ignoring harassment and remaining aloof carries many women through some situations, but assertive behavior is called for at times. A firm "No" or loud "Leave me alone" in any language is often enough to deter a potential harasser. Don't be afraid to make a scene and attract attention if needed.
Every woman must decide for herself what responses she is comfortable with and what methods of coping work best for her. Not all new experiences are pleasant ones, but adapting to and living in a different culture can be one of the most enriching and empowering experiences of a lifetime.
Travelers' Tales: A Woman's World, ed. Marybeth Bond (Travelers' Tales, 1995).
Without a Guide: Contemporary Women's Travel Adventures, ed. Katherine Govier (Hungry Mind Press, 1994).
Going Alone: The Woman's Guide to Travel Know-How, Carol Chester (Christopher Helm Publishers, 1987).
The Independent Woman's Guide to Europe, Linda White (Fulcrum Publishing, 1991).
Women Travel: Adventures, Advice, and Experience, Miranda Davies and Natania Jansz (Real Guides: Prentice Hall, 1990).
A Journey of One's Own: Uncommon Advice for the Independent Woman Traveler, Thalia Zepatos (Intercultural Press, 1992).
Women and Travel, newsletter published by the Globe Corner Bookstore in Boston (800-358-6013).
International Programs
International Center
Phone:+ 1 406 243 2288
Fax:+ 1 406 243 6194