Immigrant Academics and Cultural Challenges in a Global Environme ...

progressive and irreversible assimilation of minority culture into the host/majority culture, we now have a view of acculturation that recognizes diverse possibilities like assimilation, integration, and rejection (Berry, 1980; Gonzales, 2006, pp. 8–12; Padilla & Perez, 2003, pp. 1–4).

However, given that the immigrants and expatriates examined in this book are academics, the schema of possible routes to acculturation and adjustment developed by Berry (1980)—ranging from assimilation, integration, and rejection to deculturation (i.e., adjusting to the dominant cultural traits or reacting against it by organizing politically and institutionally) or withdrawal—do not readily apply. While all regular immigrants, including expatriate scholars, may undergo similar adjustment patterns, the specific vocation of academics as employed professors, researchers, and students does not readily allow for the options of reaction or withdrawal (except in a very metaphorical sense), due to institutional or pedagogical conflicts. Oppositional strategies and outright withdrawal from academia would defeat career goals and negatively impact the self-identity of immigrant academics. However, possible modes of adjustment could still be broad ranging, as is demonstrated in the various examples provided by the authors in the current book.

The diversity of the experiences and the specific responses to acculturation challenges recorded in this book show that factors exterior to culture (like gender, personality, social role, etc.) clearly affect the process. Although the book emphasizes challenges to immigrant scholars in new societies, it does not deny that there are factors that work to drastically smoothen the blending-in process for some fortunate immigrants.¹ What the book does do is confirm that typical problems that immigrants face remain a crucial and lively subject of scholarly reflections; as such, it is important that new immigrants and members of various college administrations learn what they can about this subject.

Specific Acculturation Challenges for Expatriate Scholars

Since all sojourner academics experience challenges normal to the process of adjusting to host cultures or societies, Ann O’Hear (in