Beyond adjustment: A temporal–ecological analysis of identity negotiation among international students

International student research has typically framed migration-to-study through adjustment and acculturation models, which may understate the identity work involved in cross-border study. This article asks how international students negotiate identity across temporal and ecological contexts during migration-to-study and what mediators shape this process, developing the Temporal–Ecological Identity Negotiation (TEIN) framework and the concept of catalytic mediation based on semi-structured interviews with 18 international students enrolled in English-medium programs at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, a single institution in a non-Anglophone setting, analyzed using an interpretivist, abductive thematic approach. The findings show that students did not simply adjust to Hungary; they connected past biographies, home-country continuities, present host-context conditions, mediating resources, and imagined futures. Catalytic mediation explains how mediators such as language, relationships, institutions, work, and future pathways can stabilize, redirect, intensify, or complicate identity negotiation. The article reframes migration-to-study as an active, mediated process across time, ecology, and future possibility, with implications for theorizing student mobility beyond adjustment-based models and for institutional practices supporting international students.