International Students
International students poses a high risk for developing depression due to lack of social support. The students when move from collectivistic culture to individualistic cultures like America, the specifically feel more lonely and depressed. Steptoe, Tsuda, Tanaka, and Wardle (2007) indicated that students who belong to less individualistic cultures reported to have higher level of depression as compared with the students who came from more individualistic cultures. This indicates that the strong social bonding in collectivistic cultures is missing in individualistic cultures where the students feel more lonely and depressed. Constantine, Okazaki, and Utsey (2004) indicated that the Asian students from the China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan and some other Asian countries were reported to be less depressed when compared with the students of African and Latin American countries. This study indicated useful differences among the level of depression and students of different cultures studying internationally. The prejudice and bias against the blacks might be a reason for the higher level of depression. Wei et al. (2007) in another study indicated that acculturation stress, the stress student’s face when being in another new culture is strongly associated with depression among these students. Lack of adjustments, cultural differences, prejudices, language barriers and inability to make new friends might be the contributing factors.Personal and social loneliness, both could be the causal factors of depression among the international students.Social Support
Social support definition refers to the assistance provided by society and the family. Social support analyst, researchers and psychologists reported four types of social support, i.e. emotional, informative esteem and tangible support. Literature has postulated the social support benefit on a high scale, by stating numerous social support example from diverse culture. Recent studies depicted that social support measures helps to investigate the level of social support an individual receives in particular culture. These measurements helps in promoting mental health and academic performance of the international students. Social supports is one important factor which is helpful in alleviating depression and loneliness’ and help the students in getting better adjustment in a new culture. When seeking help from the emotional and social problems students tend to turn towards the parents, older friends and other fellow peers to get help (Leong & Sedlacek, 1986). This indicates that social support lowers down the levels of stress being experienced by the students and helps them overcome loneliness. Baloglu (2000) indicated that friends are seen to be the most preferred source when it comes to seeking social support accompanied by parents, teachers. He asserted that friendship provides the most important social network support system to the students. Lack of the social support as its difficult for the international students to make friends leads them towards loneliness and depressive symptomatology.
Social
support and depression are strongly linked together. It is estimated that
social support helps in countering the experiences of stress as well as enhance
the well-being (Dalgard, Thapa, Hauff, McCubbin, & Syed, 2006). Students
studying in different cultures have to face a number of problems like academic
issues; self-criticism and lack of support which leads them towards avoidance
and makes them perceive very low level of social support which further makes
them depress (Besser & Neria, 2010). The culture also impacts the way
people use social support as a coping strategy to overcome depressive
symptomology. For example, studies have indicated that Asians and Asian
Americans and Arabs very less use social support as coping strategy for dealing
with stress as compared to Eurpoen American’s and Jews (Taylor, Sherman,
Jarcho, Takagi, & Dunagan, 2004). Thus, the level of social support, its
use as coping and its availability all impact the depression symptoms among the
international students.
Academic Performance
University
and college students especially those in early years of education often
experience stress as a result of transition in academic life. Many students
have moved away from their places and homes and faced with the dire need to
develop new social networks (Geiger, 2013). In addition to all these problems,
they also have issues in adjusting to the new rigorous academic expectations
and also require learning to interact with students from new cultural backgrounds
(Day &
Livingstone, 2004).
This generates a strong link for vulnerability towards depression and
making the students vulnerable towards depression and also academic failure
having low social support.
In
working on academic tasks, social support is one very important factor which
helps the students get motivated towards the task. The peers, family,
supervisor or teachers and the institution, in which the task is undertaken,
all play significant role in determining the academic performance. Perceived
social support actually corresponds to the perception that these important
members around us are supportive towards us (Reynolds & Clements, 2005). As
social support is associated with lowering down the psychological stress, it is
highly associated with the better performance and motivation.
Dollete
et al. (2004) indicated that social support acts as a protective factor that
decreases psychological problems among the students including academic stress
and anxiety. Further, it has been found that social support provides and
enhances motivation and helps students enhance their performance. Social
support significantly impacts the achievement of the students. As family,
friends and other significant individuals play an important role and are
sources of social support; these sources are found to have significant impact
on the academic achievement (Steinberg and Darling, 1994). Thus, lower the
level of social support the higher will be depression and poor will be academic
achievement and performance. This appears to be more significant for the
international students who are facing a number of challenges in the new
cultures as well as academic expectations and loneliness, being away from
family and home and difficulty in making new friends. Collectivistic and
individualistic cultural differences also play their significant role in their psycho
social adjustment and thus impact their academics.
Afro Centric Perspective
Considering the Afro Centric
perspective, very few researchers have addressed the problems faced by the
international students from the African American descend and studying in U.S.
It has been found according to the available literature that the common
stressors and problems faced by the Afro centric students studying as
international students are of discrimination and stress related to
acculturation. Being a apart of diverse population, these students have values
and beliefs different form the cultures they move into and thus, face a lot of
problems in adjustment. Apart from being prejudiced against and being subjected
to discriminatory attitudes, the coping strategies of the Afro American groups
are different when it comes to responding to the acculturative stress(Finch
& Vega, 2003). The Latinos have been found to be more frequent users of social
activities and spiritual and religious coping and get support from these
domains as compared to white population. They differ not only from the type of
social support but also the amount of support they require.
Prelow
(1997) indicated that African American and Latino students receive more social
support as compared to the White students , having different ethnicity and
culture and social support is extremely important for them because of string
family support and group orientation in their culture. Smart and Smart (1995)
investigated the issues which were unique to the Latino Immigrant students
compared to the European immigrants. The study indicated that Latinos have a
strong cultural commitment, culture of cooperation, collectivism and
intergenerational family structures and experience more stress when in a new
culture because of geographically limited ties and more family bonding.
Theoretical Framework
This study takes into account the cultural differences among
the international students and acculturation phenomenon which leads towards
various different kinds of stressors, including academic stressors and
adjustment problems, social support is seen to mediate the role between
depression and academic achievement. Conceptually Berry (1997) proposed an
acculturation framework to explain the process of the adjustment who tries to
establish their lives in a new country. He indicates it to be a long process.
Berry while giving his theoretical framework emphasized that the factors before
acculturation i-e pre arrival and during the process of acculturation i-e post
arrival. In addition, he also highlighted the group and cultural context as
well as individual and psychological context. In this study, acculturation
framework of Berry can be applied. The lack of social support could be
attributed to the differences in cultures like coming from a collectivistic
culture and trying to make new friends in an individualistic culture and making
friends, which becomes difficult and thus leads to loneness and depression. The
problems in psychological well-being and lack of social support then impact the
academic performance.
Another theoretical concept important to elaborate and coming
from the Berry’s (1997) Acculturation framework is need to belong .Baumeister
and Leary (1995) indicated that need to belong is the fundamental human need
and is crucial to the cognitive process and in indicating positive affect. Thus, in a new culture when an individual
could not fulfill this need to belongingness, it not only leads to academic
problems (poor cognitive processing) and also leads to loneliness and
depression or negative affect (lack of positive affect). Further, the social determination theory SDT
(Deci & Ryan) posits that the need and desire to have high quality social
relationship is central to the needs of the human beings. This psychological
need is central to their academic motivation as well as well-being. Positive
supportive relationships in the context of family and peers lead to better
emotional adjustment, wellbeing and academic success. In this way, when the
international students move to another country for studying, they often have
less contact with the significant others, being away from them and often hide
their issues from them. On the other hand, they also have problems in making
new friends in the new culture as the literature suggests and thus they have
less social support which leads to low academic motivation and thus
achievement.
It
is also important to include the concept of motivation to explain how social
support impacts psychological wellbeing and academic success. According to theory of motivation (Eccles
& Wang, 2012), the relationship between perceived social support and
commitment are likely to be mediated by the students’ perception about
themselves and the task they are going to perform. Thus, engagement is seen to
be a proximal factor and predictor of achievement. When someone is there who
encourages us, advises is and guides us, we have more confidence in ourselves and
also like and started enjoying the task. Thus, the social support helps us get
more engaged in the task which ultimately leads towards better performance and
achievement. Thus, keeping in view this theory and applying it to the current
study and on the perceived of the international students, it is important
because these students often do not have direct contact with the significant
others and lack social support. They get less encouraged, have low levels of
self confidence in the new environment and thus lack the desire to work hard
for the task which leads to poor academic achievement and performance as well
as sadness and loneliness which leads to depressive symptomology. Thus, these
three theories will inform this research.