Acculturation and Adaptation of Russian immigrants in the U.S.

On November 12 Dina Birman (PhD, Associate Professor at School of Education and Human Development, University of Miami, Editor-in-chief of the journal "International Journal of Intercultural Relations") took part in the «Culture matters» research seminar with the report on "Acculturation and Adaptation of Russian immigrants in the U.S.".

Immigration from Russia to USA has a long history, beginning in 1970, there are more than 400 thousand people, mostly Jews, who received the status of refugees.

Dina Birman, together with colleagues, conducted several studies on various aspects of acculturation of migrants from Russia to the United States.

According to the results of one of them, the orientation of migrants on their own or host culture has various functions depending on specific life areas. For example, orientation to American culture was associated with better adaptation in psychological, family and social spheres.

In the next phase of the research it was discovered that life satisfaction of migrants is related to the professional adaptation and social support from their ethnic group. These two factors show a full mediation effect for the orientation of migrants to host and own culture.

The report aroused a lively discussion, during which several interesting questions were raised by a world-renowned expert on acculturation John Berry.