The socio-psychological adaptation of Indian students in Russian University

Abstract

The introduction notes the increase of educational migration and the relevance of creating the necessary conditions for the successful socio-psychological adaptation of international students in Russia. The theoretical analysis is devoted to identifying modern problems of adaptation of international students in universities in different countries, including Russia. Among the various forms of work with international students, group culturally-sensitive counseling can help actualize the individual’s adaptive resources through immersion in the socio-cultural environment of the country of educational migration. Empirical analysis is based on a description of the results of a comparative study of the dynamics of personal characteristics of international students before and after group culturally-sensitive counseling. The advisory sessions involved 30 Indian first-year students (Penza State University). The analysis of the personal characteristics was carried out by means of the 3 methods: The Freiburg Personality Questionnaire, The Image-associative test “The image of the native country – the image of foreign countries” (S. V. Frolova), “The adaptation of a person to a new sociocultural environment” (L. V. Yankovsky). Reliably significant positive changes in the personality states of the respondents (decrease in the level of neuroticism, spontaneous aggressiveness, depression) were revealed. Conclusion. The analysis shows the effectiveness of group culturally-sensitive counseling in the socio-psychological adaptation of international students, which contributes to their active entry into the new socio-cultural environment of the country of educational migration. There has been an increase in integration among respondents with both Russian and Indian culture.

Keywords

• educational migration
• socio-psychological adaptation
• international students
• culturally-sensitive counseling