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A number of studies have examined the socialization of students, but few have focused on international students, who account for an increasingly large portion of the student body world wide. By considering large population of Chinese international students, this study examines Chinese students’ socialization in school and social support in South Korea and explores how their socialization and social support are influenced by their use of social networking sites (SNSs), the representative new media among young individuals. For this, we interviewed 10 Chinese students enrolled at Konkuk University (South Korea) to obtain qualitative data on how these students socialized in their new education environment and what social support they received in the country. The interview results indicate a low level of socialization for most of the interviewees. Their personal communities were generally limited to Chinese friends and classmates, and they engaged in no personal communication with their professors or Korean classmates. Most of the interviewees received support only from Chinese friends, although a few had some Korean friends who could provide them some support. We examined their SNS use and its effects on their socialization and social support. Most of the interviewees found SNSs to be useful for facilitating relationships with Chinese friends or classmates as well as for receiving emotional or cognitive support. In addition, their personality traits had considerable influence on their socialization and social support. Some interviewees wanted to make more Korean friends, whereas others did not consider them to be important. Some were stressed when they could not clearly express themselves or be integrated into the new society, whereas others were satisfied playing computer games at home by themselves. |
