Friends Matter: The Relationship Between Korean International Students’ Friendship Networks and Study Abroad Outcomes

This study examined the determinants of international students’ interactions with different friendship networks and the relationships of these interactions with study abroad outcomes, using data from 482 Korean college students who had participated in international student exchange programs. The results showed that students’ participation in extracurricular and off-campus activities while studying abroad was significantly related to their interactions with local and other international students. The results also showed that students’ interactions with co-national, local, and other international students while studying abroad were positively associated with their intercultural competence, personal development, and career development, even after controlling for other variables. We discuss the policy implications of these findings beyond the Korean context.

The Role of Integration in Understanding Differences in Satisfaction Among Chinese, Indian, and South Korean International Students

This study uses a quantitative approach drawing on data from the International Student Barometer ( N = 5,242) to investigate the relationship between integration, nationality, and self-reported satisfaction among Chinese, Indian, and South Korean undergraduate international students studying in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Results indicate that nationalities vary significantly in satisfaction levels, with Indian students more satisfied than Chinese or South Korean students. Furthermore, integration is predictive of satisfaction, and academic integration has a greater impact on satisfaction than does social integration. Compellingly, academic and social integration help explain the association between nationality and satisfaction. This study demonstrates that academic and social integration partly accounts for differences in satisfaction among nationalities, opening avenues for future research with practical implications for universities.

‘I Know What Freedom and Responsibility Mean Now’

This article analyses narratives of autonomous adulthood among Korean international students at an American state university. I categorize student narratives in terms of the number of activities associated with achieving adulthood markers and the efficacy of individual agency. A broad perspective considers a wide variety of activities to contribute to autonomous adulthood and valourizes individual agency. A narrow perspective focuses on activities tailored to one’s career, and downplays individual agency compared to larger institutional-structural factors. I examine these narratives among three groups of international students, depending on their time of arrival: pre-college migrants who moved to the USA during middle or high school, college-migrants who arrived during the first or second year of undergraduate college and post-college migrants who came for advanced degrees (e.g., MA, PhD). The finding suggests that students negotiate agency and structure differently depending on their past and current experiences in the sending and receiving countries.