“Because of the Christian Fellowship, I Decided to Stay”: How Participating in a Christian Community Shapes the Social Experiences of Chinese International Students

Anke Li, Chi Nguyen and Jinhee Choi
Additional contact information
Anke Li: Department of Education Policy Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Chi Nguyen: Department of Education Policy Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Jinhee Choi: Department of Learning and Performance Systems, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA

Social Sciences, 2019, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: This ethnographic study examines how participation in a Christian church community shapes Chinese international undergraduate students’ social experiences in an American university. Our findings reveal that Chinese international undergraduate students identify the church and its fellowship as (1) a social support community and (2) an informal learning community, one which fills in the gap in counseling services and interpersonal activities that the university fails to offer. Recommendations are made for higher education institutions to provide stronger support for international students, regardless of their nationalities and religions.

Keywords: Chinese international students; Christianity; higher education; religious community (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/8/234/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/8/234/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:8:y:2019:i:8:p:234-:d:255401

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().