Communicating Relationship-building in a Transitional Setting: Using Co-cultural and Relational-cultural Theories to Understand the Transition Experiences of International Students

This study attempts to bridge the gap in information between the intercultural communication practices of international students and their experiences in relationship-building during the transitional experience of navigating U.S. higher education. Universities in the United States of America recruit international populations to their campuses to diversify their campuses as well as their researcher profiles; however, the universities do not put the same efforts forward to assist with social integration. The researchers of this study engage in a content analysis of interviews with international students on universities campuses in the United Staes and incorporate a combination of co-cultural communication theory (Orbe, 1998) and Relational-Cultural Theory (Jordan, 2010) to create a new model through which researchers can situate their understanding of the experiences of international students as they navigate their co-cultural identity and relationship-building process in a higher education setting. These findings extends the understandings of the two approaches through an intersectional exploration between RCT and co-cultural communication theory.