Sports Management Commons^™

Outsiders Within: College Sport As An Avenue To Integrate International Students, Xiaochen Zhou, Anthony D. Pizzo, Daniel C. Funk

Management and Leadership Faculty work

The increasingly volatile social, cultural, and political environment in the United States has made it difficult for U.S. institutions of higher learning to retain and integrate international students, especially those from East Asian countries. Drawing upon social identity theory and the acculturation process, this study explored how college sport contributes to international students’ university identification using narrative interviews with East Asian international students who attended college football events at a U.S. university. Findings revealed that international students identified with their co-national peers for socialization purposes at football events and identified with the football spectator subgroup through the influence of domestic …