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Beyond acculturation strategies: a systematic literature review of the research on urban spaces and international students using relational space theory
This systematic literature review examines how international students (IS) engage with urban spaces using Henri Lefebvre’s Relational Space Theory (RST), challenging Berry’s bidimensional acculturation model. The review synthesizes 35 peer reviewed articles published between 1991 and 2025, identified through searches across six academic databases and manual screening of journals. Using content analysis integrating text mining with close reading, studies were coded according to Lefebvre’s spatial triad of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces, to analyze how IS navigate, reinterpret, and reshape urban space. Key findings reveal that IS urban experiences are characterized by a dialectical tension between institutional structures and everyday practice. Residential and campus spaces, transport infrastructure, and social-cultural venues enable and constrain adaptation. While public transport, cafes, and community spaces foster belonging and social capital, housing discrimination, safety concerns, and perceived segregation can produce exclusion. IS actively re-signify urban spaces, transforming dormitories into transnational hubs, metro routes into rhythms of belonging, and architectural landmarks into symbols of identity demonstrating that space is not a passive backdrop but an active constituent of sociocultural integration. The review concludes that RST offers a nuanced theoretical alternative to binary acculturation frameworks by positioning spatial practice as a third dimension of adaptation. Urban space mediates belonging through its material form, symbolic coding, and the everyday practices through which IS co - produce urban space. However, a significant gap persists. Few studies explicitly apply RST to IS experiences, and many rely on quantitative methods that limit insight into lived spatial practices. Future research should prioritize qualitative, theory driven approaches that capture how IS co-produce urban meaning, and investigate institutional practices such as housing policy and land use design that shape equitable, inclusive cities for mobile student populations.