Abstract
This research explores the growing phenomenon of international student mobility. This kind of mobility attracts a growing number of students each year due to its benefits on the personal and professional growth of the international student. However, international mobility experience entails the student’s immersion in a different culture, which presents a significant challenge. Indeed, integrating to a new environment requires the student to adapt to psychological, sociocultural, and intercultural perspectives and will usually result in various changes (cultural, psychological, personal identity) throughout the mobility experience. With this in mind, this dissertation aims at answering the following research question: How do international students experience their mobility in Canada and France, through their own acculturation process and the support offered by their host and home communities, in an intercultural context? In this regard, we have highlighted and articulated several key concepts such as: experience; acculturation process, and, more precisely, its two-dimensional and two-directional natures; transition; reassessment of identity; host and home communities, and, finally, support. This interpretative qualitative research is conducted as part of an international comparative and longitudinal study between France and Canada, two countries impacted by a large flow of international students. More specifically, the chosen methodology is a multiple case study, based on two cases delimited by academic communities: the first case consists of two universities located in Montpellier, France: University of Montpellier and University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. The second case is composed of the University of Ottawa in Canada. Two sets of interviews were conducted with nine international students, at the beginning and at the end of their mobility period. These participants included four international students studying in Montpellier and five in Ottawa. Also, students produced a graphic representation of their mobility experience at the end of their stay. After students returned to their countries of origin, we administered a questionnaire. Finally, we conducted interviews with seven members of Canadian and French international offices. In conclusion, this research highlights, in three phases, the mobility experience of nine international students, their acculturation process, and the support they have received throughout their experience, as well as the interdependence of these three areas we named the triptych of mobility. Furthermore, we noticed that host and home communities are involved in each area of this triptych and impact directly or indirectly student mobility. Our findings reveal that the reverse is also true, thus the acculturation process, the experience, and the support also impact these two communities. Altogether, this study offered a better understanding of the role played by home and host communities of the international student by emphasizing the fact that international student mobility is a complex phenomenon involving not only the traveller, but also everyone around him and those who cross his path.