ATTITUDES OF AMERICA-EDUCATED FOREIGN STUDENTS TOWARD AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC ORIENTATION.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the attitudes of foreign students toward American democratic ideals as carried out by most people in the United States, and to examine the conditions under which they develop their attitudes. The subjects were 304 foreign students who attended Purdue University during the second semester of the academic year 1959-60. Data were gathered by mailed questionnaires. The statistical analysis showed that almost all foreign students felt that most people in the United States were less democratically oriented than the students themselves. The only exceptions were Arab, Greek, and Siamese students. Democratic orientation scores of subjects from six countries, namely, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Iran, India, Japan, and Nigeria differed significantly from the scores attributed to most people in the United States. Favorable attitudes toward American democratic orientation were found to be related significantly to two intervening variables, namely, favorable experiences encountered by foreign students in the United States, and adjustment to the academic and social life on American campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]