Implications

5.5.1 Implications for practice

The findings of this study in context with past research has significant implications to the need of multicultural awareness for practitioners in school settings. Based on the result of this study and prior research, it is important that helping professionals need to be aware of the link between racial microaggressions and mental health in order to assist international students to identify microaggressions when they occur and to cope with such experiences accordingly during acculturating process (Nadal et al, 2014).

Moreover, knowing that different types of microaggressions may affect different ethnic groups may be helpful for counselors to recognize the signs of subtle racism that those students experience in their everyday lives (Nadal et al, 2014). For example, even though there is a notion that Taiwanese people are especially friendly to Whites (Huang, 2008; Lan, 2011), in this study White students scored higher on perceived microaggressions than Asians and Chinese students, especially by being treated as if they were not belonging to the society and as if they were criminal. Therefore, it is indicated

that practitioners should be aware of diverse microaggressions issues across different ethnic groups.

Also, according to the current study, students with different ethnicities/nationalities have different domains of difficulties when acculturating into Taiwanese culture. For example, Caucasian students experienced more microaggressions than overseas Chinese students in terms of being treated as a foreigners and being stereotyped in an overly sexual manner. Chinese students, however, reported more acculturative stress with respect to homesickness and fear. Therefore, when counseling international students, it might be important to recognize their common issues or difficulties regarding acculturation based on their nationalities and ethnicities.

In addition, depression was found to be a potential problem for international students in Taiwan. According to this study, nearly one third (27.3%) of the students exceeded the cutoff point of CESD-R and was at risk of clinical depression, and studies in other countries indicated that depression has been one of the top concerns among international students who seek help from school counseling centers (Nilsson, Berkel, Flores, & Lucas, 2004; Yi, Lin, & Yuko, 2003). Also, practitioners should pay attention to the students’

mental health by various means, such as conducting a mental health scale to all freshmen of international students, or promoting counseling resources.

As for study program, this study and previous research revealed that international students who enrolled in a degree program reported higher scores on both microaggressions and acculturative stress level (Huang, 2008). It may be indicated that these students encountered more difficulties and had more mental health issues when acculturating into a new environment. Therefore, school faculty should be especially concerned about this group of people during and out of classes.

5.5.2 Implications for research

Overall, this study is an exploratory, as quantitative research, in examining international students’ mental health and experience of microaggressions in Taiwan.

There was no domestic research that directly measured those students’ depression level, perceived microaggressions, or how these two relate to acculturative stress. Therefore, based on the purpose of providing a broad perspective of students’ acculturating experiences in Taiwan to academic area, there are some implications I would like to give to future research.

First, according to the taxonomy of microaggressions which Sue et al. (2007) introduced, there are three forms of microaggressions and each of the forms includes different themes, such as ascription of intelligence and color-blindness (Sue, 2010). Also, in Kim and Kim’s study (2010), various themes that international students might encounter were recognized. In Taiwan, Fan and Ni (2013) mentioned several microaggression issues for immigrant women. However, there is no local study that pays attention to the general microaggression themes among international students. Therefore, it is suggested that future research seek for recognizing specific microaggression issues among this group, and comparing the result to foreign studies.

Second, the concept of microaggressions was rooted in the U.S. society, and some of it might not adapt well into other countries. For example, when it comes to the definition of racial microaggressions, various research refers to it as subtle insults toward people of color, implying that only people of color receive this type of racism (Solorzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Sue et al., 2007; Sue, 2010), when clearly in other cultures Whites also receive such insults. Moreover, when addressing examples of microaggressions, it is mostly Whites discriminating against people of color (Sue, 2010; Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2009; Sue et al, 2008). However, from the result of this study, there were diverse ethnic groups that have experienced microaggressions, and White/Caucasian

people reported an especially higher level of microaggressions than Asians. This may provide a broad perspective to academic area that microaggressions may actually refer to dominant groups discriminating against minority groups rather than referring to specific ethnicities. Therefore, future research should reexamine the definition of microaggressions and adjust it into a more multicultural term that applies to different cultural backgrounds.

Third, since microaggressions happen between interpersonal exchanges, it may be worth investigating public’s attitude toward minorities. Previous studies which addressed this issue mostly focused on local people’s perspective on immigrants from Asian countries, especially from South-East Asia (e.g., Chen, & Yu, 2005; Yi, & Chang, 2006) or toward aboriginal groups (Chen, Wang, Chung, & Lai, 1999; Lee, 2007). However, there is no study directly examining society’s attitude toward international students. Thus, it is encouraged that future study assess this topic in order to enhance the perspective from both parties.

Last, even though this study addressed the issues of acculturative stress, depression, and microaggressions among international students in Taiwan, there is little contribution on how to cope with such issues when moving in a new culture. Previous research also indicated that more coping strategies among international students needed to be examined since the topic was under-investigated (Zhang, & Goodson, 2011). Therefore, future studies should also pay attention to positive factors relating to acculturating processes in order to provide guidance of how to successfully adjust to a new culture.