Aug 2026· Journal of International Students· Vol 16, pp. 23-48· 0 citations· 39 references
Abstract
As digital communities increasingly shape university social life, e-sports has become an overlooked site where international students may enter peer networks and negotiate belonging. This study examines how international students in Chinese universities participate in e-sports communities, develop intercultural relationships, and negotiate identity across digital and campus spaces. Based on semistructured interviews with twelve international students, thematic analysis revealed three interconnected processes that were synthesized as adaptive cross-cultural engagement (ACE): collaborative participation through digital play, interpersonal recognition through collaborative usefulness, and negotiated visibility. Drawing on communities of practice, sense of belonging, and identity negotiation theory as sensitizing lenses, the ACE emerged from the analysis rather than from a predefined framework. It explains how e-sports participation can develop into social integration when access becomes meaningful recognition and cultural difference remains visible within shared practice. This movement remained conditional, as language barriers, unequal feedback, and exclusion could interrupt the transition from participation to belonging.
Digital transformation in Indonesian higher education, as part of the Global South, is reshaping not only learning technologies but also communicative norms and professional relationships between lecturers and students. This study explores how digital immigrant lecturers experience and negotiate intercultural communica...
Julia Magdalena Wuysang, Ira Patriani, Arkanudin et al.· Technium Social Sciences Jou...· 0 citations
First-year international undergraduates from collectivistic cultural backgrounds navigate belonging across hybrid online and offline contexts as they transition into U.S. universities, yet existing work has underexplored how this process unfolds over time. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 participants, s...
Irene Yu, Gabriela Marcu· Proceedings of the 2026 Comp...· 0 citations
International students do not encounter university life as a single process of “adjustment”. Academic expectations, language, social relationships, cultural routines and access to support can develop at different speeds and may reinforce or complicate one another. This study explored how international students at City...
Hersi Salmo Abdiaziz, R. Segumpan· International journal of soc...· 0 citations
International education mobility is more than enrolment in an academic programme. It is a relational experience shaped by language, social contact, belonging, and the imagination of a professional future. This study examines how international students and mobility participants make sense of intercultural adjustment, be...
Yasemin Necmiye Tutar· International Journal of Con...· 0 citations
Digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped the ways young people establish social relationships and participate in civic activities. This study aims to examine the influence of social connectedness on civic participation among Generation Z within the context of an increasingly digital society. A quantitative cro...
