The Impact of Study Abroad

The article reports some results from a UNESCO sponsored study that involved students from three countries, the UAR, India, and Iran, who had returned to their home coun tries after two years or more of study abroad in the German Federal Republic, the United Kingdom and the USA. These students were interviewed, and they reported very varying degrees of adjustments to their host countries. In general the Indian stu dents reported fewer changes than the other two student groups, apparently choosing cultural coexistence rather than conformity to a foreign culture. This finding cannot be explained satisfactorily by differences between the samples, or by the Indian students' greater possibility of contact with fellow nationals. It is suggested that such factors as training in cultural pluralism, ideologies that regulate degrees of acculturation, cultural distance, the image of the home country abroad, and its rank in the international system are relevant for the students in their adjustments and degrees of acceptance of the foreign culture.