A Review of Expatriate Adjustment Researches : Searching a Theoretical Framework for Studies on Teachers' Cross-cultural Experiences

The purpose of this paper is to review expatriate adjustment researches in search of a theoretical framework for studies of teachers' cross-cultural experiences, which have not been explored much in past researches and have not received theoretical considerations. Based on Mendenhall's (1996) observation that there are significant parallels between expatriate managers and foreign TAs at American graduate schools, who share a variety of common grounds with teachers engaging in teaching at overseas schools, I expected that some aspects of expatriate adjustment studies would give insights into researches on such teachers. Although a theoretical confusion exists among expatriate researches concerning the definition of the concept of adjustment, it is common practice that expatriate adjustment is treated as a multi-faceted phenomenon, including work, interaction and general adjustments. For each adjustment, there are antecedents including individual, organizational, and contextual variables. These concepts may be utilized in future researches on teachers' overseas teaching experiences. A question was raised as to whe ther it is appropriate to treat teachers' cross-cultural experiences as a mere adjustment to foreign environments and it was suggested that a growth model by Adler (1986) may better capture the concept of teacher growth