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CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTEGRATION OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AT URAL STATE MINING UNIVERSITY

Irina Britvina, Galina A. Savchuk, Alexey Britvin

Abstract

The efficiency of teaching Earth Sciences to international students depends on many circumstances. In particular, it depends on the personal cultural and educational resources. All universities work on actualizing them, as the processes of educational systems internationalization are of great significance for all countries. International students have less cultural resources for completing university programs, if compared to local students, but the educational migration is increasing throughout the world. In 2018, the number of migrants from Central Asia reached about half of the total number of people coming from the Commonwealth of Independents States (CIS) to Russia. Educational migrants from this region, entering the Ural Region (Russia), try to settle in Ekaterinburg, in the first instance. In 2018, 9339 people, who indicated education as the purpose of entry, came to Ekaterinburg from Central Asia. 6 major universities of the city in 2019 had 2334 students from Central Asia on campuses; 202 of them were studying Earth Sciences at Ural State Mining University (USMU). Central Asian countries do not have enough universities to teach students the disciplines in the fields of Mining and Geology. USMU is the oldest university in the Urals with a centennial history. All programs in the university are taught in Russian. International students have to integrate with the university?s educational environment and the community of the host country all at the same time. They address this task in different ways, depending on their resources for cultural integration. The authors of the article based their work on the theory of acculturation by John W. Berry. In 2017, they surveyed migrants of different ethnicities from Central Asia (n = 231); the share of students in this sampling made up 26.8%. In 2019 experts (n = 10) and students from Central Asia (n = 32) took part in the in-depth interviews, including the participants from Ural State Mining University. According to the authors of the article, the cultural integration has a fundamental importance for the successful educational integration. Students from Central Asia, studying Earth Sciences, in the first place, face the problem of the poor command of the Russian language which makes the study process difficult. Besides, the attitude of teaching staff and classmates to international students and the work of mentors are of great importance. Extracurricular activities, organized on campus, as well have a positive effect on the successful relationship building within the educational environment and, consequently, on the study process.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2020/5.2/s22.086

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