Exploring social media practices and cross-cultural adaptation of mobile students in multilingual and multicultural higher education

Abstract

Attracting and retaining culturally diverse students is one of the contemporary higher education institutions’ strategies for internationalisation. However, due to linguistic and cultural barriers, the sojourner students encounter challenges in gaining equal opportunities in the ‘game’ of education and social participation. Migrating to the multilingual and multicultural higher education landscape in Hong Kong, students from Mainland China are found facing linguistic, cultural, social and academic challenges. Through the theoretical lens of Bourdieu’s sociological framework and critical digital literacy (CDL), this study investigated how this group of sojourner students leveraged social media to adapt to a novel sociolinguistic and socio-academic field. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 17 Mainland Chinese students who were admitted to undergraduate programs at three Hong Kong universities. Findings revealed interactions with social media through a critical lens played an essential role in expanding these sojourner students’ online and offline habitus, which further contributed to the accumulation of different types of capitals that facilitated cross-cultural university adaptation. Therefore, CDL is a powerful tool in the relationship between sojourner students’ digital literacy practices and cross-cultural adaptation to a novel higher education field.