The Social Capital Experience of International Students in Australia: The Wollongong Experience

Abstract

International university students arrive in their host country denuded of supporting social networks and confronting unfamiliar cultural and educational institutions, an experience that adversely impacts on their wellbeing and academic performance. Our study extends these general notions in the recent literature by investigating how, and to what extent, students renew their social networks. We adopt the social capital framework and conduct a participant survey in order to categorise and measure these different investments in clubs, employment, and friendships. Our results reveal a high degree of variability of social capital renewal between students and, among the more active, there remained a tendency to build close networks only with students from their own county of origin.Social capital, international students, Wollongong Australia