Overseas Students at Leicester University: Some Problems of Adjustment and Communication

Abstract

The universities of this country provide an interesting and important laboratory for the student of race relations. In his book Negroes in Britain, Dr. K. Little observed that:It is not widely appreciated that very many of the future leaders of the British colonial areas spend two or more years in this country at a most impressionable period of their lives; or that the ideas and notions that they obtain here of British people and European ways are likely in the long run to influence some sixty million coloured people abroad. The observations that follow are drawn from an investigation that was undertaken by the present writer at Leicester University from 1957 to 1959. The university is in many ways typical of English provincial universities and it is felt that the ensuing discussion may well be of relevance to Redbrick generally and not just to Leicester in particular. The purpose of this article is two-fold: firstly, to describe some of the factors that are likely to affect the ways in which overseas students adjust to life in this country, and in particular to the student community; secondly, to discuss some of the barriers that impede effective communication between English and overseas students. These two aspects are not unrelated.