IDENTITY AND INTERCULTURAL ADAPTATION. STUDENTS' ADJUSTMENT PROCESS TO EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTS

This paper focuses on Erasmus students' adjustment process to foreign cultural settings in relation to the identity changes that are triggered by the new contexts and experiences abroad. In this regard, the core of the paper is to understand the main adaptive challenges generated by students' educational transition, and to identify the factors and strategies they employ to overcome them.Facilitating a more positive adjustment and educational experience for the international students remains a growing interest and concern in higher education (Shigaki, Smith, 1997; Olivas, Li, 2006; Wenhua, Zhe, 2013). However, most of the, studies that investigate educational transitions focus on the attitudes and adjustment problems of foreign students in the United States (Zimmermann, 1995; de Araujo, 2011). In this context, we find it important and pertinent to examine the adjustment experiences that European students undergo in Europe, in order to learn more about the stages and forms of intercultural adaptation as it occurs in their specific case, and about how to ease their confrontation with different cultures and people in a variety of ways.To achieve its objectives, our study reviews several theoretical notions and models - such as "identity negotiation" (Ting-Toomey, 1999) and "cultural contracts theory" (Jackson, 2002; Hecht, Jackson, Ribeau, 2003; Onwumechili et al., 2003), that help understanding Erasmus students' identity shifting and adjustment process abroad. To the same end, a qualitative research based on semistructured interviews was conducted among Romanian and Dutch students who have recently performed academic exchange in a European country.