Responding to the diverse students needs of an increasingly internationalizing American college population has become an important concern for student affairs professionals. For this purpose, increasing the effectiveness of co-curricular activities requires exploring the students diverse needs and the relation between social and cultural participation and academic success.
This dissertation presents a case study focused on international graduate students of selected nationalities at the University of Pittsburgh. By applying social capital, cultural capital, and involvement theories, this study explored the areas and the degrees of social and cultural needs and participation of the selected population and how needs and participation relate to their diverse background, adjustment, and academic performances. The data were collected from about 250 survey participants and 40 face-to-face interview participants.
The dissertation findings focuses on the following issues: (i) the variation of civic engagement with respect to marital status and nationality; (ii) the impact of language barriers and differences in socialization culture on students socialization patterns; (iii) the high or moderate correlations among the levels of social capital, cultural capital, civic engagement, participation, and previous cross-cultural experience; and (iv) the low correlation between academic success and the previously mentioned elements.
The conclusion lists the implications of this dissertation study in terms of theories in this case study context, related literature, research methodology, programs and services, and university policy. The highlights in this section are: various ways in which student affairs professionals can help increase the social and cultural participation of international graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh; and the importance of promoting cross-cultural experience among the entire student population.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12062007-133251 |
| Date | 29 January 2008 |
| Creators | Terano, Mayumi |
| Contributors | Maureen McClure, William E. Bickel, Shawn E. Brooks, Micheal Gunzenhauser |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12062007-133251/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, 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 Pittsburgh 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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