Sociocultural support of international students as adaptation tool in intercultural environment of Russian university (SUSU case study)

Russian universities strive to implement strategies to enter the global educational space and increase the number of international students, as this is the crucial indicator of a university’s success. The implementation of these strategies involves not only the introduction of innovation in the educational process, but also the creation of favorable conditions for international students. However, academic migrants have to adapt to these new conditions, as they will differ from the conditions in the home country. Although many institutions put efforts to maximize students’ adaptation and acculturation, the desired outcome is yet to come and the search for effective practices is still a pressing challenge. The organization of socio-cultural support as an adaptation tool in the intercultural environment is of great importance. The research aims to examine the current conceptions and best practices of sociocultural support in the academic environment, reveals the major challenges of the international students, identifies the international student’ satisfaction rate and suggests the model of sociocultural support in SUSU. The authors employ qualitative research with the data obtained from the interviews, classroom observations, and satisfaction survey among 30 international students. Modern concepts and certain practices of sociocultural support for international students in the Russian academic environment are examined, their major challenges are revealed, the level of satisfaction of international students with the quality of sociocultural support at SUSU is determined, sociocultural pedagogical model for student support is elaborated. The implementation of the suggested model is supposed to contribute to more efficient adaptation of international students into Russian educational environment.