Cultural Identity Development Of International Students From The Countries Along The "Belt And Road" Routes ——Study At Hangzhou Dianzi University

Cultural identity is an essential concept in the field of intercultural communication.Recently,with the continuous acceleration of globalization,cultural identity development,the core content of identity,has become a great concern to scholars.In cultural identity development,quantitative research methods are mostly adopted,while limited research has covered quantitative research.Besides,countries along the "Belt and Road" routes have become the largest source of international students in China.These students are important carriers for spreading Chinese culture,but few studies are on the development of their cultural identity in China.Given this,this study adopts a case study method to explore the status of identity development of international students coming to China from countries along the "Belt and Road" routes.The Three-Stage Model of identity development proposed by Phinney divides the identity development process into three stages: the unconfirmed stage,the exploring stage,and the forming stage.According to this,it conducts a one-year survey in the form of semi-structured in-depth interviews.11 international students from countries along the "Belt and Road" routes are invited to conduct 55 interviews and a collection of reflective journals.The environmental system in which the "Belt and Road" students live has been influencing their cultural identity;also,different environmental systems lead to different development paths and results.Ecological Systems Theory,a model proposed by Bronfenbrenner,emphasizes that a developing individual is in a series of environmental systems that interact.These individuals in the system interact and affect the development of individual identity.Based on this analytical framework,five factors are identified: microsystem factors（parents,schools for studying overseas and friends）and mesosystem factors（the relationship between parents and schools for studying overseas,the relationship between parents and their friends,and the relationship between schools and friends）,exosystem factors（public service,policy systems and cultural atmosphere）,macrosystem factors（social background）and chronosystem factor（time span in China）.After summarizing,the following results are obtained:This process mainly goes through three stages of identity development: initial stage,experience stage,and transformation stage.The three development stages present the following features: in the initial stage,the prejudices,expectations,and predictions doping by the international students about China have a particular guiding effect on their identity development.The experience stage is the key to research.Because of the three main predicaments: language barriers,cultural differences and value differences,different individuals adopt different coping strategies so that identity development is divergent.At this stage,emotional experience significantly affects cultural identity development,and the author believes that the formation of identity starts from the second stage.Subsequently,the international students’ cultural identity in the third stage continues to be verified and forms their stable cultural identity.