International university freshmen’s perceptions on culturally diverse community and internal stakeholders’ tactics

The paper explores first-year students’ feelings about international university campus. Increasing globalisation of education raises a number of issues related not only to internationally accepted standards of qualifications and degrees, curriculum development, faculty competences, but also to domestic and international students’ tolerance, community building, etc. The research focuses on the first-year domestic and international students’ attitudes to their own and other cultures, students’ readiness to share their personal psychological environment with еру representatives of other cultures. The study started with literature review and further used surveys for experimental analysis of students’ perceptions on culturally diverse community. Most surveys engage current undergraduate and final year students, with no particular attention to those who have just enrolled. The present paper argues that the novice students’ surveys could contribute to mapping potentially sensitive zones regarding novice students’ engagement into the university multifaceted landscape. Respondents were asked about the reasons to choose the international university for studies, attitude to other cultures, readiness to accommodation with foreigners. The above survey helped to draft preliminary recommendations regarding ways and instruments for the university internal stakeholders to efficiently interact with domestic and international students to foster their social maturity within international university landscape and its multicultural environment. © 2016 Atabekova, Belousov and Yastrebov