Scandinavian Students' Images of the United States: A Study in Cross-cultural Education

Factors Influencing Attitudes of Foreign Students toward the Host Country

“…Eventually he works out a modus v i c e d i ; with the re-establishment of equilibrium in his own life comes a return to a relatively favorable view of the host country. Sewell ( 1954) reported parallel cycles following this U-pattern with respect to contact with Americans, adjustment during the stay, and attitudes toward the United States. However, Lysgaard (1954) found such a trend with respect to reported ease of establishing personal contact with Americans and with respect to some of his adjustment measures, but found no consistent time pattern with respect to negative or positive characterizations of the "typical American" nor with respect to whether Americans as people or American democracy were found to be "better" or "worse" than the student had expected.…”

“…Sewell et al (1954) report that those students in their study who were in the United States for the second time were "quite in agreement" that such is the…”

“…Starting out with highly enthusiastic reactions, they are likely to become more criticd after a few months; a period of relatively negative feelings is likely to be followed by a return to more favorable evaluations, though the initial rosy view may not be recaptured. Sewell et al ( 1954) and Scott (1956) reported such a pattern among Scandinavian students in the United States, Coelho (1958) among Indian students, and Morris (1960) among students from many different countries. Gullahorn and Gullahorn (1956) noted that American students in France also seem to go through such a cycle.…”

“…With respect to views about freedom of speech, the findings of different studies are contradictory. At least two studies based on repeated intensive interviews with small numbers of foreign sudents in the United States in 1952-53 (Lambert and Bressler, 1956;Sewell et al, 1954) noted considerable criticism of restrictions on freedom of speech in the United States. On the other hand, in both of our studies and in the Morris study (all of which were carried out in 1954-55 or 1955-56), substantial majorities expressed the opinion that there is little or no restriction on freedom of speech in the United States.…”

Chapter IV: Education in a World Society

“…The images that foreign students have of the United States, with special reference to factors within their own culture that produce such views, were identified for Mexican students by Beals (3), for Scandinavian students by Sewell, Morris, and Davidsen (72), and for Indian students by Lambert and Bressler (50), and by Useem and Useem (94).…”