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Exploring knowledge of Canadian values and social axioms in international and landed immigrant students' adaptation to Canada

This thesis was an exploration of the relationship between the host cultural knowledge of newcomers and their behavioural and psychological adaptation to the host culture. Utilizing a theoretical and applied approach to this research, 160 international and landed immigrant students at the University of Saskatchewan completed a questionnaire examining their perceptions of Canadian values and social axioms. Values and social axioms are guiding principles and mediating beliefs, respectively, that individuals use to organize, understand and facilitate physical and social functionality within a culture (Schwartz, 1994; Leung et al., 2002). Despite the complexity of the research task, there was marginal support for the main hypothesis that the participants understanding of Canadian cultural knowledge was related to adaptation to a host culture, specifically psychological adaptation. Furthermore, the results indicate that the participants knowledge of Canadian values and social axioms was differentially related to psychological and behavioural adaption to Canada.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-01182009-181018
Date09 February 2009
CreatorsCalvez, Stryker Shay
ContributorsSomerville, Kara, Chirkov, Valery I., Cheesman, James E. (Jim), Alexitch, Louise R., Wormith, J. Stephen
PublisherUniversity of Saskatchewan
Source SetsUniversity of Saskatchewan Library
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-01182009-181018/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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