An Analysis of Cultural Adjustment Experienced by AIESEC Members of
University of Muhammadiyah Malang in joining the Europe Exchange
Program
THESIS
By:
NAILA AROFATIN P.
201110100311101
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Exchange Program... 8
2.2 AIESEC ... 9
2.3 The Challenges of Foreign Students... 10
2.4 Cultural Diversity……….. 10
2.5Culture Shock ….……….. 11
2.6 Cultural Adjustment……….. 12
2.6.1Models of cultural adjustment ... 13
A. The Anxiety and Uncertainty Management ... 14
B. The U-Curve ... 14
C. The Transition ... 16
D. The Communication-System ... 17
1. Adjustment to the Job ... 17
2. Adjustment to Interaction ... 18
3. Adjustment to the General Non-Work Environment ... 18
2.8 Problem Solving ... 18
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 Research Design ... 20
3.2 Research Subjects ... 21
3.3 Research Instruments ... 21
3.3.1 Interview ... 21
3.3.2 Document ... 23
3.4 Data Collection ... 24
3.5 Data Analysis ... 24
CHAPTER IVFINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Research Findings ... 26
4.1.1 The Cultural Adjustment experienced by AIESEC members ... 30
4.1.2 The Problems of Cultural Adjustment in Joining the Europe Exchange Program ... 32
4.1.3 The Way They Solved the Cultural Adjustment Problem ……. 35
4.2 Discussion ... 39
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusion ... 42
5.2 Suggestions ... 43 REFERENCES
REFERENCES
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1 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents some topics related to the background of the study,
the statement of the problems, the purpose of the study, significance of the study,
scope and limitation and definition of the key terms.
1.1Background of the Study
Culture is way of life. As Zion and Kozleski (2005:3) defined culture is
the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the
members of society use to interact with their world and with another. Meanwhile,
Brisling (2000:4) states that culture refers to shared values and concepts among
people who most often speak the same language and live in proximity to each
other. These values and concepts are transmitted for generations, and they provide
guidance for everyday behaviors.
Learning the culture is deeply bringing us to understand that people have
primary role in culture. People with their ability as creator; create the way of life
or named culture. People recognize culture as their life guiding. In this stage they
become the adherent and their duty is to save the culture itself. In fact, people also
play as the manipulator of culture when they are being out of cultures’ circle. This
phenomenon must become our concern as long as we are humans’ culture. There
are circumstances when people bring the culture abroad and it proves that people
is the carrier of culture. Moreover, the whole concept means that people live
within culture.
In the daily life ina country’s society, culture is also used as identity of a
2 process of living in the different culture can be an exciting and stimulating
experience. It is also a tremendous challenge as we realize that our normal way of
perceiving and behaving may not be appropriate in the new cultural setting. Each
of us has been conditioned by our family, friends, and educational and religious
institutions, think, perceive, and feel in certain ways. These values vary from
culture to culture. Therefore, the behaviors lead to success or happiness in that
culture also changes. Understanding those valuesis a key to understanding the
culture.Hall(2002)states that culture is defined as a historically shared system of
symbolic resources through which we make our world meaningfully.
Each country, city, and region has different culture,not only in terms of
customs, language or the environment, but also the things as mentioned in the
Diller (1999:14) cultural differences exist in values, style of communication, the
perception of time, the meaning of health, community and so on. Furthermore,it is
supported by Fitriany (2012) who states that actually, each country, island and
city has different culture because people who live in one place will live with their
own way, habit, and custom. It includes the way of their thinking, their habit, and
their style. The effects of those differences make people confused when they go to
other country or other city. It can be called as culture shock.
According to Samovar(2012:10):
Culture shock is a mental state caused by the transition that occurs when you go from a familiar cultural environment to an unfamiliar one and discover that your normative, established patterns of behavior are ineffective. It is defined as a term used to describe the anxiety and feeling (surprise, disorientation, confusion), only focusedon psychological feeling but also about physical distress.
Coming from different cultures, international students face changes in every
3 food, language, culture, habits and behaviors. Hence, the major task in cultural
adjustment is to cope with change in many aspects of life. Conner (1992) found
that resilience characteristics are essential characters to successfully deal, with
change. By studying the successful human behavior patterns during the process of
change, one is in a better position to make adjustments.
According to Quappe and Cantattore (2007), “Cultural Awareness is the
foundation of communication and it involves the ability of standing back from us
and becoming aware of our cultural values, beliefs and perceptions”. It is
important to learn more about cultural awareness for people who want to enter a
new cultural environment. It helps them to adjust and adapt with the new culture
and environment by themselves easily. Also, it helps them to avoid
misunderstanding and misinterpretation about the new culture which they
entered.Adjusting to a new cultural environment can be greatly difficult. The
problem is not only the psychological distress but also physically. In this case the
new comers are forced to adapt with the situations depend on the rule of the
country.
According to Kim (2001), points out that cross cultural adaptation is the
dynamic process where individuals resettling to new, unfamiliar, or changed
cultural environments in which this processes keep comparatively stable with their
environments through responsive change in the terms of their states, structures, or
patterns of their environment. It implies that adaptation involves the process by
which individuals rebuild their familiar culture to the culture they entered. It
covers short and long term adjusting until they are really able to cope with the
adjustment problem. This process includes how and why they adapt to that new
4 adjustment is a process by which individuals learn the rule and customs of new
cultural contexts. In the process of adjusting, individuals try to learn the hosting
country in order to be survived and received by the society. They begin to learn
the rules and the customs of the new culture, whether they are accepted or
rejected.
In the current era of globalization, cooperation among countries is not only in
economy field but also in education field. Nowadays, there are many student
exchanges, both of students from abroad studying in Indonesia and vice versa.
The students often have difficulty staying in another country because of cultural
differences.
Living in foreign country sometimes makes people feel happy, proud,
satisfied, and comfortable, but actually they will feel sad, unsatisfied and
uncomfortable (Mazidatul, 2013). It means that they may have difficulties to
understand the adjustment problem around them. Therefore, they have to adapt
with some aspects of the new culture but not to others. Consequently, such a study
of the relationships among resilience characteristics and adjustment factors may
turn out to be significant. It is also important to explore the relationships among
resilience characteristics and background factors to better understand resilience
characteristics relative to international graduate
University of Muhammadiyah Malang is one of the Universities in Indonesia
cooperating with European countries in education through AIESEC exchange
program. Many students have attended this program, but they faced many
difficulties in adapting/adjusting to their new environment. Hence, the writer
wants to know what the problems that experienced are and what the culture
5 Furthermore, it is supported by Mazidatul (2013) who conducted a study about
culture shock faced by Indonesian student community in Hamburg, Germany. She
found that overseas student faced culture shock in food, transportation, weather,
social life, and habit. Similar to Indonesian AIESEC members who have joined
Exchange Program in Europe, definitely the members face such culture shock
situations in the beginning of their stay. For instance, they felt many difficulties
such as food, social life, transportation, weather, and language in adjusting
themselves in the new environment at the beginning of their stay in Europe.
Based on the reasons above, the writer wants to analyze the Indonesian
students in AIESEC organization as the respondents of this study focus on the
problem faced and the cultural adjustment experienced by them in joining Europe
Exchange Program.
1.2Statement of the Problems
Based on the background of study above, the writer would like to focus on
finding the answers to the followings:
1. What are the cultural adjustments experinced by AIESEC members of the
Universty of Muhammadiyah Malang in joining the Europe Exchange
Program?
2. What are the problems faced by AIESEC members of the University of
Muhammadiyah Malang in cultural adjustment during the Europe Exchange
Program?
3. How do AIESEC members solve the problems of cultural adjustment during
6 1.3Purposes of Study
In accordance with the problems above, this study is conducted to get the
answer of the research question. The purposes of the study are:
1. To describe kinds of adjustment experienced by AIESEC members of the
University of the Muhammadiyah Malang in joining Europe Exchange
Program.
2. To investigate the problems faced by AIESEC members in cultural adjustment
during the Europe Exchange Program.
3. To describe the problems solved by AIESEC members in Cultural Adjustment
during the Europe Exchange program.
1.4Significance of the Study
This study is expected to enrich and enlarge the knowledge about Cross
Culture Understanding ingeneral and specifically tothe students and the lecturers
of English Department at University of Muhammadiyah Malang. This study is
also expected to motivate students to analyze Cross Culture Understanding
phenomenon happens when entering a new culture andenvironment. The result of
this study is forecasted to give contribution for the next researcher who wants to
conduct a similar research with different topic about resolution of homesickness.
1.5Scope and Limitation
The scope of this study is focused on the cultural adjustments and the
limitation of this study is the AIESEC members of University of Muhammadiyah
7 1.6Definition of the Key Terms
To clarify the terms used in this study, the writer gives some definition of key
terms. They are investigated in this study as the following:
a. Culture is the system of shared beliefs, values, customs and artifact that the
members of society use to interact with their world and with another (Zion and
Kozleski, 2005:3).
b. Cultural adjusment is a process of multiple interacting factors distinguished by
different behavioral, cognitive, affective and demographic attributes and by
different levels, varying from cultural assimilation to cultural transmutation
(Martin and Nakayama, 2000:209).
c. AIESEC is a global, non-political, independent, not-for-profit organization run
by students and recent graduates of institutions of higher education. Its
members are interested in world issues, leadership and management that
focuses on the development of youth through experimental learning
(Pankaj, 2013).
d. Exchange program is the term given to a program, usually run through a
university, which allows a student to live in a foreign country and attend a
foreign university. The program usually grants credit for courses taken at the
foreign institution and some also arrange for a work-study or internship
