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Acculturation and Well-Being Among International Students: Challenges and Opportunities

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Rethinking Education Across Borders

Abstract

In this chapter, we first review how acculturation, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical factors influence international students’ different health behaviors; then we discuss practices and strategies that colleges and universities may adopt to facilitate health behaviors and well-being of their international student population. While transitioning from high school to college, all college students have to go through the process of adapting to new educational and social environments. This process is particularly stressful for international students due to different backgrounds in terms of cultural values, languages, academic preparations, and study habits. With limited internal and external resources, those challenges may pose risks to international students’ health and well-being. For instance, research has shown that international students gained stress, body weight, increased consumption of unhealthy diet, and used drinking to cope with stress after they came to the U.S. In addition, international students’ well-being has been closely influenced by the political climate related to immigration policies, which will also be discussed in this chapter

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Merrimack College, North Andover, MA, USA

    Zi Yan

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  1. Zi Yan
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Correspondence to Zi Yan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Uttam Gaulee

  2. Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Shyam Sharma

  3. Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Krishna Bista

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Yan, Z. (2020). Acculturation and Well-Being Among International Students: Challenges and Opportunities. In: Gaulee, U., Sharma, S., Bista, K. (eds) Rethinking Education Across Borders. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2399-1_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2399-1_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-2398-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-2399-1

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