UK students had international friends. Middlehurst & Woodfield (2007) report that international students desire more intercultural experiences but are often dissatisfied, reporting in particular a lack of social integration with home students. They often report remaining in friendship groups with co-nationals or forming groups with other international students (UKCOSA, 2004). The studies discussed above suggest that this is a comfortable position for some. Their learning about British culture is from an external perspective, living alongside, yet apart from, the home student population. However, others report intense culture shock, homesickness, a lack of progress with spoken English, alienation and general dissatisfaction as a result (e.g. see press reports from Lipsett, 2007; Asthana, 2007; Hodges, 2007). At the individual level, they return to their home country having not enjoyed the social and educational benefits which they had anticipated. At the market level, poor experiences potentially undermine the reputation of the host country as a study destination as word-of-mouth filters through professional, friendship and family networks. Ward, Bochner & Furnham (2001) and Ward et al (2005) also draw a correlation between better integration into the host culture with overall levels of academic satisfaction and general wellbeing. B. Intercultural development of UK students In order for UK students to develop the skill-set that is considered necessary for interaction across cultures (Stier, 2003; Deardorff, 2006; Stone, 2006) and which are increasingly valued by employers (Leggott & Stapleford, 2007; Fielden, 2007), it is essential that they have the opportunity to build positive relationships with people from other cultures. It is this exposure which provides the necessary learning experiences. However, it has long been understood by social psychologists that mere contact is insufficient to build mutually-rewarding relationships between groups from different cultures. The contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2000; Dovidio, Gaertner & Kawakami, 2003) predicts the need for (a)
populations from which they were drawn (e.g. by sex, age and ethnicity) , although insufficient demographic information was collected to test this empirically. The data were subjected to a thematic analysis. Initially, each author independently identified emergent themes from the focus group and interview transcripts from their own university. These were then compared, discussed and refined, leading to a further phase of analysis based on agreed themes. A final phase of analysis saw each author analyse the other university’s transcripts to ensure reliability, as far as possible. The findings reported in this paper therefore relate to these agreed themes; there were no readily identifiable differences between the data from the two universities. 6. Summary of findings It was clear from the comments of home students that they and international students mostly inhabited semi-distinct social spaces within the university environment. Social encounters with international students were generally coincidental and unplanned. Home students reported mainly spending time within tight peer groups which rarely included international students. Where international students were members, their status as ‘other’ was downplayed by descriptions such as “one of us” or “just the same” (Halualani, 2008). Those students who were more readily accepted into social groups were reported to be generally of European or Anglophone origin. Popular culture was crucial for the interviewees in defining their own identity in relation to the wider student body. Friendships and ingroups were built on a shared knowledge and appreciation of music, film, websites, television programmes and comedy; nearly exclusively of British, American or Australian origin. This heavy reliance on a highly-defined portfolio of cultural artefacts made it very hard for students to participate in friendship groups where they lacked knowledge of the key components of the specific sub-culture and its associated meta-language, which took the form of