Primary professionalization of foreign students: barriers, stigmatization, adaptation

Introduction. In the context of the export of educational services, it is of particular importance to design an efficient system of foreign students’ psychological adaptation. Owing to the ethnocultural background, foreign students feel that they are stigmatized minorities in the host society. Negative images and stereotypes are often internalized, resulting in stable low self-esteem in the stigmatized. Since self-esteem acts as a key parameter of the professional self-concept, social stigma and the experience of social identity threat activate the stigmatization of primary professionalization, thereby drastically reducing the efficiency of the received vocational education at the university. The purpose of the study is: to outline the phenomenon of primary professionalization, to reveal the nature of the relationship between the social stigma of foreign students and their self-esteem, and to describe the levels of primary professionalization. Materials and Methods. The study involved 124 foreign students. Participants were asked to answer questions of the Short Form of the Stigmatization Scale and Rosenbergʼs Self-Esteem Scale in order to track the relationship between social stigma and self-esteem. Further, in order to identify the basic barriers to primary professionalization and the participants’ perception of their stigmatized status, the respondents answered the questions of a semi-structured interview supported with the critical incident technique in a focus group format. Results. There is a correlation between the degree of obviousness of social stigma and self-esteem of foreign students. The categorization of the data obtained allowed the authors to substantiate the phenomenon of stigma of primary professionalization, to systematize the determining factors, and to describe its levels. Discussion and Conclusion. Despite the fact that social stigma has attracted active attention of world science for decades, we have not been able to find focused studies into primary professionalization in the format of education export. Studying the factors that lead to the development of stigma of primary professionalization, understanding its levels will help to design a system for its prevention, optimize the system of adaptation of foreign students to the realities of the educational system of the host university.