A Dramaturgical Perspective on North American and Chinese Students’ Social Integration in Israel

Abstract

Through the lens of dramaturgy theory, this study conceptualizes Israel as the stage, North American and Chinese students as two groups of actors, and social integration as their play, seeking to answer this question: how do the different roles North American students and Chinese students play in Israel lead them to different experiences of social integration? This study attempts to understand what roles American and Chinese students initially wanted to play and what shaped them, where, how and with whom they conducted their performances, and if the roles they played were adjusted during the process. Eight sets of semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with four American students and four Chinese students. The research findings and analysis reveal that although American and Chinese students do have different experiences of integration, they nonetheless share similar strategies that a dramaturgical framework can successfully elicit. Moreover, the analysis presented in this thesis, also, suggests that the experience of international students is likely much more layered than what is reflected in much of the literature that addresses the integration of international students.