Cross-cultural context of foreign students socialization in educational and cultural environment at institutions of higher education

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The processes of globalization and international integration in various fields of science and culture as well as broadening of academic mobility justify the importance of the issues of cross-cultural communication in the educational aspect. The increase in the number of international students at Ukrainian institutions of higher education has caused a greater interest in improving of educational process and socialization of international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education which becomes a multicultural learning environment. The need of training professionals for foreign countries, who can freely orientate themselves in a modern sociocultural situation, implement a full-fledged productive cooperation with representatives of other countries and cultures in different spheres of human knowledge, actively achieve their full potential in professional field and creative work, has arisen. All these factors have influenced the increase of interest in the issues of socialization and cross-cultural communication of international students in social-pedagogic studies. The shaping a personality capable of an active creative activity in multicultural environment and able to adequately interpret the cultures of other ethnic groups becomes the priority of the modern educational system.

The socialization of a personality as a multifaceted phenomenon has been studied in different scientific fields: social and philosophic (Batenin, Parygin, Parsons and others), social and psychological (Andreyeva, Antipova, Kon, Leontiev, Petrovsky and others), social and pedagogic (Bim-Bad, Bezpal'ko, Zvereva, Mudrik, Ryzhanova, Savchenko and others). The conceptual views of Weber, Marcuse, Maslow, Sorokin, Toffler, Habermas, Erikson, and Jaspers are concerned with methodological issues of socialization studies. Among social pedagogues, the socialization of student youth are studied by Ananiev, Boginskaya, Dyabel, Kurlishchuk, Mishchenko, Ovcharenko, Potopova, Sevastianova, Shtyfurak and others. The socialization of international students is researched in the works of Burakova, Din Sin, Grishchenko, Zozulya, Mayatskaya, Popkova, Porokh, Sin Chzhefu, Ushakova, Khu Junsi, Yazvinskaya and others.

Issues of Culture. The issues of cross-cultural communication are studied in the works of Vereshchagin, Grushevitskaya, Donets, Kolbina, Kostomarov, Sadokhin, Ter-Minasova, Berry, Hall, Hofstede, Knapp-Potthoff, Kramsch, Malezke, Oberg, Triandis and others. Various aspects of the formation of cross-cultural communication have been studied by Arutyunova, Zimnyaya, Maslova, Passov. Education of international students is also explaned in the context of cross-cultural communication (Kuznetsova, Kulichenko, Rodonova, Svoykina and others). intercultural socialization student educational

Thus, the issues of socialization of a personality and cross-cultural communication have been sufficiently studied in a modern scientific literature;

however, the problem of socialization of international students in the context of cross-cultural communication, in our opinion, has not been sufficiently researched which conditioned the purpose of the article -- the study of the specific features of socialization of international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education in the context of a modern theory of cross-cultural communication.

The socialization of a personality of an international student takes place during the process of his entry into a new society through adopting of social norms and values of the new culture. In the dictionary of philosophy, socialization is defined as «the process of operational acquisition of the set of activities and behavioral programmes, which is typical for one or another cultural practice, as well as the process of individual's interiorization of knowledge, values and norms conveying them» [6, p. 964]. Andreyeva interprets socialization as «a double-faced process which includes, on the one part, individual's adoption of a social experience by means of entry into a social environment, a system of social relations; on the other part, the process of individual's active reproduction of the system of social relations by means of his active work, the active entry into a social environment» (Андреева, 2007, с. 179). In social pedagogics, socialization is defined as «the process of a person's entry into the society together with his social relations and integration into various types of social communities, as a consequence of which the formation of a social individual takes place» (Звєрєва, (Ред.), 2008, с. 237).

The socialization of international students in the educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education may be characterized as cross-cultural socialization, which, according to Yakovleva, will be considered as the development of a personality of an international student in the process of his familiarization with another culture, the formation of his readiness for successful self-fulfilment in a sociocultural environment distinguished from his native one, in the system of relations into which he actually enters (Яковлева, 2012, с. 129).

Socialization occurs under spontaneous influence of various life circumstances upon a personality and by means of purposeful shaping a personality. Such components are singled out in the process of socialization: spontaneous socialization, relatively guided socialization, relatively socially controlled socialization (Мудрик, 2006, с. 22). In educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education, a special attention should be paid to the implementation of socially controlled socialization of international students, i. e. to their social education which is the process of purposeful creation of appropriate conditions for the development of sociality of social subjects in all the spheres of the society (Рижанова, 2005, с. 14). Sociality is defined by Ryzhanova as «the purpose of social education is hierarchy of social values, social qualities and social behavior -- as well as the social and educational result -- the demonstration of individual's positive and creative attitude to social being, particularly to domestic, ethnic, religious, regional, global, etc.» (Рижанова, 2005, с. 14).

The socialization of foreign students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education is carried out in the context of cross-cultural communication, which they have to join. In our opinion, the process of socialization of international students at Ukrainian institutions of higher education should be considered as composed of three stages: social adaptation, social integration and social individualization. In the process of social education of international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education, one should take into account the specific features of every stage in the context of cross-cultural communication in which the students are involved.

The formation of skills in cross-cultural communication occurs as a specially organized purposeful process. In the process of socialization of international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education in the context of cross-cultural communication, culture plays a great role. According to Sheyko, «the main track of the development of the world culture goes not through the reduction of all its wealth to a single sample, but through the accumulation of all the best of the cultures of all the nations, preservation of wealth of the cultural diversity not only in the memory, but also in the cultural practice of the mankind» (Шейко та Богуцький, 2005, с. 116).The presence of international students in the culture of Ukrainian society presupposes situations that are regulated by the norms of two cultures, i. e. occurrences of cultural crossing in which a communicative act is interpreted from the point of view of both cultures. From Pochebut's perspective, «the culture forms the united semantic field by means of the process of categorization of ideas and objects existing in the surrounding world. The world is structured in human's conscience, and ideas and objects acquire the sense and the meaning» (Почебут, 2012, с. 13).

Cross-cultural communication is a form of social communication carried out implemented in the situation of cross-cultural interaction. The socialization of the personality of an international student in educational and social environment of another culture takes place in the context of cross-cultural communication as the participants of communication belong to different cultures and realize cultural differences between them.

The term of cross-cultural communication first appeared in 1954 in the works of American scientific school of cultural anthropologists. In their article «Culture and Communication» (Trager, Hall, 1954), Hall and Trager defined theoretical and practical perspective of the range of problems in cross-cultural communication. A new scientific school emerged after the release of E. Hall's book «The Silent Language» (1959), in which the author describes an immediate connection between culture and communication and the possibility to compare cultures issuing from the common bases of all the cultures. American scientists Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck suggested their own methodology of cultural studies, meanwhile, in their opinion, the main cultural difference may be established with respect of individual cultures to such concepts as the assessment of human's nature, human's attitude to nature, interpretation of the concept of time, and valuation of activity/passivity. Samovar and Porter became the founders of another school in cross- cultural communication, and their interests are concerned with the study of verbal and nonverbal communication. In 60-70-s of the 20th century the research in cross-cultural communication was supplemented with the study of adaptation to the environment of another culture and the problems of culture shock. The modern study of cross-cultural communication, according to Sadokhin (2005), is based on such conceptions of cultural models as: Hall's theory of high and low context (1998), Hofstede's theory of cultural dimensions, Hirsch's theory of cultural competence (Садохин, 2005, с. 98).

Sadokhin studies cross-cultural communication from the point of view of cultural contacts, «Cross-cultural communication is a special form of communication of two or more representatives of various cultures, in the course of which the exchange of information and cultural values of interacting cultures takes place» (Садохин, 2005, с. 95). Vereshchagin and Kostomarov define cross-cultural communication as «an adequate mutual understanding of two participants of a communicative act belonging to different national cultures» (Верещагин и Костомаров, 1990, с. 26). Grushevitskaya believes that «cross-cultural communication should be considered as the whole set of various form of relations and communication between individuals and groups belonging to different cultures» (Грушевицкая, Попков и Садохин, 2002, с. 116). There are fundamental definitions for an analysis of the socialization of international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education and the implementation of their social education in the context of cross-cultural communication.

Culture Shock. The processes of socialization take place in the life of international students simultaneously with the processes of acculturation -- the adoption of a new culture. Cultures are not isolated, and acculturation is the most important component of cross-cultural communication. Acculturation presupposes the presence of behavioral strategies of the derived linguistic identity directed to the search of balance between one's own culture and the culture of another language with the purpose of finding differences and similarities between the cultures. The study of acculturation processes was initiated by American cultural anthropologists Redfield, Linton and Herskovits. Matsumoto interprets acculturation as the adoption of a new culture that leads to changes occuring as a result of a long-lasting immediate contact of representatives of different cultures (Мацумото, 2008, с. 657). During the process of acculturation every person has to solve two problems simultaneously: preservation of one's own cultural identity and entry into a foreign culture. Combination of possible variants of the solution produces four main strategies of acculturation: assimilation, separation, marginalization and integration.

During the contact with another culture one gets acquainted with new values, people's actions which may provoke various problems and conflicts caused by incomprehension of another culture. Specialists call the stress- producing impact of a new culture upon a human being as «culture shock». Similar definitions are sometimes used: «transfer shock», «cultural fatigue» (Садохин, 2005, с. 137). In varying degrees, all the migrants entering another culture, including international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education, experience culture shock.

The term «culture shock» was introduced into the scientific use by American researcher Oberg in 1960 (Oberg, 1960). As a rule, six forms of culture shock are distinguished: the tension caused by efforts to bring about psychological adaptation; the feeling of loss caused by the loss of friends, one's own position, profession, property; the feeling of loneliness (isolation) in a new culture which may transform into denial of this culture; breach of role expectations and the sense of self-identification; anxiety turning into indignation and aversion after recognition of cultural differences; the feeling of inferiority caused by lack of ability to manage the situation (Садохин, 2005, с. 137). The reason of culture shock is the difference of cultures; finding himself in new conditions a person loses the usual orientation system as it is based on the other notions about the world, the other behavioral norms, values and stereotypes.

For the first time, the mechanism of «culture shock» was described in detail by Oberg (Oberg, 1960), who asserted that people go through certain stages of culture shock and gradually achieve a satisfactory adaptation level. Today, the so-called curved adaptation (U-shaped curve) has been suggested for the description of those stages, in which Triandis differentiated five stages of the process of cross-cultural adaptation (Triandis, 1994). U-shaped curve of the development of culture shock is characterized by the following steps: good, worse, bad, better, good (Садохин, 2005, с. 139).

During the process of socialization of foreign students, one should take into account the peculiarities of heir acculturation and behavior of the stages of «culture shock»; social-pedagogic activity in social education of international students should be planned taking into consideration the specificity of the stage of culture shock which experienced by the international student in a certain period of his studies.

One of the main pedagogic conditions of the formation of readiness of international students to have cross-cultural communication is the educational and cultural environment in which they implement their learning activity In our opinion, the needs of international students, the specific features of organization of teaching and educational process for them make it possible to distinguish the following components in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education: organizational and technological, social and educational, and social and cultural ones. The educational environment of the institution of higher education is one of the most intensive zones of interethnic contacts, where representatives of different ethnic groups meet and where different systems of world perception world and world outlook contact with each other. As a result of those contacts, many students develop stereotypes of interethnic perception and behavior.

Towards Enhancing Socialisation. In order to solve problems related to optimization of stay of international students in the educational and cultural environment of the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture the Centre of Cross- Cultural Communication and Social Adaptation of International Students was set up under the supervision of Student's Council. The purpose of the Centre's activities is familiarization of international students with sociocultural processes taking place in Ukrainian society, acquaintance with artistic traditions of Ukraine, organization of activities aimed at fostering tolerance, skills in cross-cultural communication, optimization of the process of entry of foreigners into Ukrainian culture, their adoption of actions and behavioral models given by representatives of Ukrainian society. Among the Centre's tasks there is the development of social activity and creative potential of a personality of international students, organization of various forms of cultural and leisure activities with the use of ethnic traditions, creation of optimal conditions for the formation of aesthetic perception of the world, integral world-view and the culture of interethnic relations, the development of creative abilities and self-fulfilment of international students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education.

For the purpose of successful cross-cultural communication of international students, a significant aspect is the acquisition of the language of learning, which may be Ukrainian or Russian languages presented in educational and cultural environment of the institutions of higher education of Ukraine. For the successful implementation of cross-cultural interaction of international students, one must not just learn the language, but have knowledge of cultural components of words' meanings, understanding of realities of a foreign culture. The language training of international students becomes the basis of self-formation of their personalities, intellectual growth, the indicator of readiness for productive activity and cross-cultural communication in sociocultural and professional spheres.

As a rule, much attention is paid to the study of differences between cultures, but in our opinion, one should focus international students on the similarities between Ukrainian culture and their own culture. At the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture, creative professions are acquired by Ukrainian students together with Chinese students. The result of their collaboration is shown in various creative projects, among which there is a popular scientific video film created in 2013 by the group of foreign and Ukrainian students under the title «Ukraine -- China: a Dialogue of Cultures», the concept of which is the theory of the dialogue of cultures. The film demonstrates that completely different and territorially remote ethnic groups which are in contact with each other in the era of globalization, have a broad common ground. The main idea of the film becomes the awareness of the fact that in order to start a worthy dialogue with the representatives of non-European culture one should know and understand the culture, and the understanding occurs much more effectively in the process of comparison of its realities with the realities of one's own culture. The video film has a practical interest not just for the audience of Ukrainian students interested in Chinese culture, but also for Chinese students studying at the institutions of higher education of Ukraine as it is used as didactic audio-visual material in the process of language training of foreign students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education.

Conclusion. The socialization of foreign students in educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education should be considered as their social education which presupposes the formation of sociality of an international student possessing such qualities as the ability to empathize, self- appraise, control his emotions, show interest and attention to other people, have interethnic and cross-cultural tolerance and respect for national traditions and customs of Ukrainian society. The formation of sociality of international students takes place in the context of cross-cultural communication, the efficiency of formation of readiness of international students influenced by such factors as the level of acquisition of the language of learning and the level of knowledge in cultural and country studies, personal experience of communication in new conditions, the level of communicative skills, adaptation of behavioral models used in other cultural environment, etc. Cross-cultural communication of international students should be considered as a multifunctional phenomenon including the awareness of norms and principles of communicative behavior in another social environment, the ability to transfer them into the area of cross-cultural relations. Proceeding from the peculiarities of international students as the subjects of the educational process of the institution of higher education, one should create special conditions for their rapid social adaptation and efficient social integration into Ukrainian society and educational and cultural environment of the institution of higher education taking into account their interests and needs as well as the peculiarities of acculturation process and the stages of «culture shock» behavior in the context of cross- cultural communication as a form of interaction of foreign students and representatives of Ukrainian society.

We see the prospects of further studies in the research of the specific features of the formation of cross-cultural skills and competence of international students as a prerequisite to successful cross-cultural communication, in the context of which the formation of their sociality takes place.

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