The Acculturation Orientation of International Student Centres Analysed Using Bourhis’ Interactive Acculturation Model (Iam)

This paper uses Bourhis’ Interactive Acculturation Model (IAM) to analyse the type(s) of dominant host acculturation orientation(s) espoused by the International Student Services Offices at the University of Toronto, York University, and Ryerson University through their International Student Services webpages. The multilevel structure of the IAM model allows the researcher to consider the multiple spheres in which the students exist: macro level government policy, the city in which the university is located, their experience on campus. To guide this analysis, the researcher followed a thematic constructionist approach to capture important content from the data that could be used to respond to this question. After the coding process five key themes were identified based on their prevalence in the data and their utility in answering the research question (Braun and Clark, 2006). The host orientation of all three International Student Services webpages is found to be predominantly one of integration.