Research Question and Hypothesis

Despite the multiple challenges encountered by international students in Canada, most of them get acculturated in the long run and choose to remain in the country (Lu et al., 2009). As suggested by the Canadian Bureau of International Education, 67. 6 % of international students are planning to apply for permanent residency after their graduation (CBIE. 2015a). Many African International students’ long-term goal is permanent immigration due to familial-related, socio- cultural, and economic factors (Boafo-Arthur, 2013). Compared to American students, international students from Africa and the Middle East are nearly three times more likely to stay in Canada after their graduation (A World of Learning. CBIE. 2015a). As immigration is one of the key considerations when deciding where to pursue their future education, most African international students develop strategies that enable them to adjust to their new environment (Boafo-Arthur, 2013). This is in accordance with the study conducted by Phinney and Onwughalu (1996) which found that immigrants who come to the United States from poorer or less-advantaged countries are less troubled by issues such as discrimination, as they are more absorbed by the opportunities available to them.

According to the literature, most Black students decide to study abroad to gain better employment opportunities, higher salaries, and avoid unpleasant economical and political situations in their home countries (Boafor-Arthur, 2013; Constantine et al., 2005; Hyams-Ssekasi et al., 2014). Giving the above-mentioned, this research will intend to answer one important question related to ISSAFC acculturation and adaptation to their new environment:

What is the preferred acculturation strategy adopted by International Students from francophone Sub-Saharan African Countries in the Ontario bilingual universities?

64 The study hypothesizes that:

H1. Most ISSAFC will choose integration as their preferred acculturation strategy, by retaining their ethnic cultural values while adopting the host country’s mainstream culture (Berry, 1997).

According to Kim (1988), it is through active contact and communication with the dominant community that immigrants will gain insights and skills needed to adjust to the new environment. Newcomers will reach a greater level of adaptation if, during the acculturation process, they participate in constant communication within their own ethnic community, while they develop communication competencies through their contact with the host community (Kim, 1988). In accordance to this finding, we hypothesized that ISSAFCs’ greater communication competences as well as greater bicultural competences would be associated with the choice of integration as an acculturation strategy.

H2. International students from Sub-Saharan African francophone countries’ greater intercultural communication competences will be associated with the better intercultural adaptation.

This will result in maintaining their original cultural identity and customs of values while willing to be in contact with host cultural groups and learn their ways of doing (Berry, 1997; Kim, 1988; LaFramboise et al., 1993).

In most countries, newcomers must learn the majority community language to survive and function in the new environment. Host language proficiency is imperative for the performance of international students pursuing an academic degree (Constantine et al., 2005). Language barriers will also prevent newcomer from developing a social network important to their adaptation (Kim, 1988). Gonzales (2006), suggested that students with strong social networks are able to adapt easily to the new culture and cope with stress better. This research assumes that, language barriers will enhance conflicts with the new culture of education and lead to greater acculturative stress.

65

H3. Language barriers will enhance conflicts with the new culture and lead to greater acculturative stress and lower sociocultural adaptation.

Sheldon et al. (2004) in the SDT showed that if the decision to perform an action is autonomous, such as when individuals engage in an activity because they have personally decided to do it and consistently perform it, they achieve very well and gain in well-being. Assuming that our participants actively participate in the decision to study in Canada and that the reason behind this decision is to gain better employment opportunities or to avoid economic and political difficulties in their home countries, we hypothesized that two motivational factors:

(1) self-determination of studying abroad, and

(2) the students’ goal to achieve personal growth and career development from a global perspective

will positively predict various indicators of the students’ academic, social, and cultural adaptations. Also, for international students, the motivation to go abroad is primarily academic and learning-oriented compared to permanent migrants whose motivation can be economic opportunities, political reasons, career and or family oriented, etc. This makes them more inclined to focus on their academic success than learning about the host country environment (Kim, 2001; Wintre et al., 2015). If the research relies on the assumption that the initial motivation of international students coming from Africa is the possibility to seek permanent residency after graduation, it can be hypothesized that they will differ from the other international students in their willingness to adapt to Canada and to the Canadian university context. The fourth question this study is intended to answer is

Do future residency intentions moderate the relationship between acculturation and these students’ intercultural adaptation outcomes and well-being?

66

H4. Permanent residency intention will significantly predict ISSAFCs’ acculturation orientation, increase sociocultural and intercultural adaptation, and reduce acculturative stress.

With the aim of pursuing our analysis of the effect of language on the ISSAFCs’ acculturation orientation, we have decided to compare ISSAFCs studying in Toronto to their co- national studying in Montreal as we hypothesized that:

H5. International students from Sub-Saharan African francophone countries studying in Montreal, a francophone environment will undergo less acculturative stress than the participants studying in Toronto an anglophone environment.