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The present study addresses three objectives: 1) to explore the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) persons who are coming in the United States as students and coming out about their sexual orientation, 2) to explore the cultural narratives that emerge in their disclosure process, and 3) to generate ways to support LGBQ international students. Research on the disclosure process for LGBQ persons have been comprised largely of white, middle-class individuals and families. This narrative inquiry broadens our understanding of how LGBQ persons from different cultures define and experience the coming-out process, particularly in the context of moving to a different country. Twelve LGBQ international students shared their coming in, coming out stories through interviews, journals, a timeline, online forum, and picture. Narrative analysis of their stories consisted of three methods: thematic, structural, and dialogic. These findings provide directions for future research, clinical practitioners, educators, and student affairs personnel working with international students. / Ph. D.

In der vorliegenden Studie wird anhand von sechs vorwiegend studentischen Stichproben von Teilnehmern zeitlich befristeter Austauschprogramme zwischen Deutschland, Japan, und den USA („Sojourner“) der Zusammenhang zwischen Persönlichkeit, Werten, kultureller Distanz und Akkulturation untersucht. Die einleitenden Analysen zeigen, dass alle Teilnehmergruppen die Persönlichkeits- und Werteunterschiede zwischen den Bewohnern der einzelnen Länder ähnlich einschätzten. Andererseits wiesen diese direkten Einschätzungen keinerlei Übereinstimmung mit angeblichen Kulturunterschieden, wie sie sich indirekt auf Basis aggregierter Selbsteinschätzungen berechnen lassen, auf. Ebenso konnte gezeigt werden, dass zwar einige wenige Persönlichkeitseigenschaften und Werte vermutlich als „typisch“ für Sojourner im allgemeinen zu betrachten sind, im Gegensatz dazu jedoch sowohl die Ausgangswerte, als auch die Entwicklung der meisten Charakteristika während des Auslandsaufenthalts, zwischen Teilnehmern unterschiedlicher Nationalität stark variieren. Ein Vergleich von Persönlichkeits- und Werte-Selbsteinschätzungen mit entsprechenden Unterschieden zwischen Herkunfts- und Zielkultur lässt darauf schließen, dass Sojourner dazu tendieren, gezielt in Länder zu reisen, mit deren Bewohnern sie in bestimmten Merkmalen übereinstimmen, und dass die wahrgenommene Ähnlichkeit zu den Bewohnern der jeweiligen Gastgebernation nach der Rückkehr ins Herkunftsland nochmals zunimmt. Der Grad der erreichten Akkulturation während des Auslandsaufenthaltes (insbesondere jener der Zielkultur-Orientierung) ermöglichte über alle Teilnehmergruppen hinweg eine Vorhersage von Gesundheit und Lebenszufriedenheit, war jedoch nur schwach mit der Aufenthaltsdauer korreliert. Zusätzliche Varianz im Akkulturationsgrad konnte durch Persönlichkeit und Werte der Teilnehmer, sowie durch die Größe der entsprechenden Unterscheide zwischen Herkunfts- und Zielland auf Kulturebene aufgeklärt werden. / The present study examined the relationship between personality, personal values, cultural distance and acculturation in primarily academic sojourners travelling between Germany, Japan, and the US. A Preliminary analysis revealed that ratings for the culture-level personality and values differences between each culture were highly consistent across sojourner groups, but that these ratings showed no relation to alleged cultural differences as calculated from national self-rating means. Subsequent analyses discovered a small subset of personality traits and values typical for sojourners in general, while most pre-sojourn characteristics and their development abroad strongly differed across national groups. A significant trend for participants to seek out host cultures fitting their own personality and values patterns was mirrored by an increase in self-rated similarity to host culture members after the return home. The degree of acculturation (especially host culture orientation) reached throughout the sojourn significantly predicted health and life satisfaction across participant samples, but turned out to be only weakly related to the time spent in the host country. Additional variance in acculturation success was explained by participant personality, personal values, and the associated culture-level difference between host and home countries.

This dissertation has investigated the impact of the acculturation and repatriation processes and the language experiences of French academic sojourners on their perceptions of cultural identity. This dissertation was based on three substantive themes: culture shock, reverse culture shock and cultural identity issues.

Previous research using future time perspective or possible selves frameworks provided evidence that learners with definite and elaborate goals, and future self-guides are more motivated in school tasks (Reeve, 2009; Yowell, 2000), exert more effort, demonstrate persistence, and show greater performance (De Volder & Lens, 1982; Lens et al., 2002; Simons et al., 2000), and learners with positive possible selves were better able to face failure, demonstrated better performance, had higher levels of self-esteem, showed more persistence on tasks, and depicted greater motivation (Cross & Markus, 1994; Oyserman et al., 2004; Unemori et al., 2004). The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of future orientation constructs, future time perspective and possible selves, on Turkish college level learners' motivation to learn English and their identity construction, and how future projections of themselves as L2 users (the ideal L2 self, the ought-to L2 self, and feared L2 self) impacted their motivation to learn English and their identities. A total of 299 Turkish graduate students studying in the United States participated in the study. Also, this study examined the extent to which adding a measure of the feared L2 self construct contributed to explaining motivation to learn English and identity construction. The data were collected via surveys and interviews, and they were analyzed quantitatively, using qualitative data for triangulation. Findings suggested that the L2 motivational self-system (Dornyei, 2005, 2009) contributed to explaining Turkish learners' motivation to learn English and their oriented identities. Also, adding a feared L2 self variable to measures of the L2 motivational self system could help explain learners' identity construction but not their language learning motivation. In addition, future time perspective connectedness and value were not useful in explaining the L2 motivation, but future connectedness was found to be related to the ideal L2 self and feared L2 self, and valuing the future goals was related to the ought-to L2 self. Qualitative data showed that learners presented combination of several identities, including national and oriented. They imagined themselves as professional and successful English users, and their L2 related worries included losing their native language and being seen as "assimilated" or as "showing off" individuals. / text

In this thesis I explore issues of food security and food-identity relationships among international students at the University of Guelph and the University of Windsor. I argue students who attempt to maintain traditional diets are more likely to experience food insecurity than students who explore diverse foods because they are more likely to be negatively affected by food availability, food access and structural barriers. What students eat can also have implications for identity maintenance and identity creation. Thus in this thesis I also explore the relationship between food and identity by considering how identity and food-security can be closely related to preferred food availability and accessibility. I argue that students consume certain foods as a means to maintain and create identities, and as such I suggest that familiar food eaters may experience a sense of losing their identities as their food insecurity increases.

There are a considerable number of Saudi Arabian students who attend U.S. schools. To date, no published studies exist that relate to the Saudi Arabian students, their families, and how they acculturate to the American society. Acculturation affects parents and children in different ways, and it can affect the way parents raise their children. Using semi–structured interviews, this study examined Saudi mothers' perspectives on acculturation to American society and how those perspectives affect their childrearing beliefs and their children's behaviors. The descriptive qualitative study acknowledges mothers' perceptions about adaptation of Saudi children to American society and if those parents observe behavioral changes in their children. The results showed there are some changes that occurred regarding parental beliefs of parents due to acculturation, but there were not any behavioral problems caused by acculturation to the American culture in the Saudi children.

La trajectoire migratoire des conjoints d'expatriés se donne à voir dans son ensemble lors de l'expérience de mobilité internationale se traduisant par une rencontre interculturelle. Depuis les conditions de départ, en passant par les diverses modalités de confrontation, individuelles, collectives et culturelles avec le pays d'accueil, le conjoint d'expatrié, souvent considéré comme simple suiveur de l’expatrié professionnel, peut également se poser comme un véritable acteur, évoluant à l'intérieur d'une gamme d'opportunité et de contraintes définies par le contexte de migration. Dans une démarche méthodologique compréhensive, nous proposons un modèle intégratif de recherche, basé sur deux dimensions du processus acculturatif et identitaire : l’adaptation psychologique et l’adaptation socioculturelle. A ces aspects, s’ajoutent les enjeux interculturels d’identification à la culture d’origine et d’accueil, entre autres. Dans notre étude, les prédicteurs définis dans notre modèle apparaissent comme des ressources, psychologiques, interpersonnelles et culturelles, mobilisables facilitant l'adaptation des conjoints d'expatriés. Nous argumentons que les processus d'adaptation des conjoints en situation de migration temporaire sont largement facilités par la décision concertée du projet d'expatriation, ainsi que par l'identification à la culture du pays d'accueil. Les conjoints d'expatriés, en raison notamment de la nature du projet migratoire, adoptent cependant, en majorité, des stratégies identitaires privilégiant l'identification à leur culture d'origine. Cette étude met en avant les dynamiques interculturelles et les négociations identitaires possibles des conjoints d’expatriés français en prenant en compte les différents dynamismes adaptatifs et définit une base de compréhension du vécu de migration temporaire de ce groupe, permettant ainsi l’optimisation du bien-être psychologique et socioculturelle des familles envoyées en expatriation. / Spousal adjustment issues to host country are a major reason for expatriate assidûment failure and the main focus of our field study. By combining elements of Berry's conceptual framework for the analysis of acculturation attitudes with Ward and colleagues' theorising on cross-cultural adjustment of sojourners, our research examined, among other predictors, host-national and conational identification in relation to sociocultural and psychological adaptation of 96 expatriates spouses. This research highlights, through completed questionnaires and interviews, that our proposed integrative model of research is highly reliable to predict psychological and sociocultural adjustment. Results revealed two main effects. Considering the adaptation process, subjects with strong involvement in the decision making process of expatriation will experience a better psychological adaptation during cross-cultural transitions. In addition, those with a strong hostnational identification will largely experience a better socio-cultural adaptation during their assignment abroad. The effect of identity change is however limited as a large majority of subject chose the separation acculturation strategy, implying a weak identification to the host-national culture and a strong identification to the co-national culture. The investigation makes a useful contribution to theoretical developments in the study of acculturation of a specific group: the french expatriates spouses living abroad. Moreover, the study corroborates the validity and the empirical distinction of psychological and sociocultural adaptation, as acculturation strategies and the predictors of adjustment's domains in the vast and expending literature on acculturation and identity.

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