Abstract
Taiwan has gained popularity among European university students as an ideal destination in exchange programs. This study aims to compare European students’ perceived Chinese cultural values with those of Taiwanese students and to provide a deeper understanding of the cultural and social interactions of European students in Taiwan. A personal survey and in-depth interviews were administered in five major universities in northern, central, and southern part of Taiwan to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data. European students consider few Chinese cultural values like knowledge, kindness, tolerance of others, and harmony with others higher than those of local Taiwanese students. In few traditional Chinese cultural values like gift giving, courtesy, prudence, Taiwanese students value them with higher scores than European students do. With reference to the Chinese culture in particular, European students have to deal with different teaching styles and different norms while communicating with instructors and local students in Taiwan. Five themes were formalized to describe European students’ experiences in Taiwan focusing on lifestyles, acculturative stress, learning, language issues, and social interactions with local people. The learning adaptation, individually distinctive, converges to positive experiences through socio-cultural interactions, which makes the experiences valuable and precious. European students do not overlook European ways of engaging with instructors, but they perceived, internalized and demonstrated their learning process in Taiwanese higher education. Cultural interactions enrich teaching and learning environment which benefits European students and Taiwanese students to a great extent.
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All of the data and research material are available upon request.
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The SAS and SPSS software are used in analyzing research data.
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This work was partially supported by Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 108-2511-H-005-004) in Taiwan.
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Jane Lu Hsu: conceptual model, advanced analytical coding, manuscript preparation, and revision. Shu-Yun Chen: data collection, basic analytical coding, and draft writing. Roberta Facchinetti: manuscript preparation and revision
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Ethical approval was not sought for the present study because all of the survey and interviews were strictly anonymous. No minors were included in the study. Authors of this study do not collect or store identifiable data. Verbal informed consent was obtained from all survey respondents and interviewees before the study.
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Hsu, J.L., Chen, SY. & Facchinetti, R. European students’ learning adaptation to socio-cultural interactions in Taiwan. Asia Eur J 19, 347–370 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-021-00600-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-021-00600-y