The reverse culture shocks among Thai AYC exchanged students (2018 - 2019)

Abstract

The research aims to find the reverse culture shocks of Thai AYC exchanged students in 2018 to 2019 after returning from overseas and examine how Thai AYC exchanged students react to the Thai environment when they return and how they overcome it. There were 99 samples of the AYC Intercultural program from 2018 to 2019. A mixed-method was used in this research, consisting of an online questionnaire and an online structured interview. The results showed that samples experienced reverse culture shocks. The reverse culture shocks were from school and teachers, friends, family, lack of freedom of expression, and lack of confidence. The samples reacted to both environments differently; they stated the cultural differences and chose their host countries' cultures. Also, they would like to move out of Thailand permanently. It showed that they reacted negatively towards the Thai environment. Still, they overcame their reverse culture shocks by i) communicating with people around them and expressed their feelings, ii) keeping in touch with a host family, iii) using personal space, iv) trying to do activities, v) skipping classroom and school, vi) trying not to compare Thailand with the host country, and vi) trying to contact the host family and accept the Thai environment. Unfortunately, the samples neither understood nor received the teachers' assistance. The results also revealed that teachers did not pay enough attention on the students’ suffer on reverse culture shocks. From the results, schools and teachers should provide the student a better care and service to manage and help the particular exchanged students, furthermore, the findings reflected that education in Thailand need improvement in teaching quality, teachers' capabilities, and a better learning environment to adapt to the international standards to soothe the exchanged students’ well-feeling