Acculturation preference and psychological adaptation among immigrant women: A research on contemporary third sector service users

Abstract

This study seeks to explore the different preferences of acculturation strategy employed by immigrant women and discuss what could be learnt from adaptation experiences of senior immigrants. It is conducted in close cooperation with two third-sector organiza-tions, namely WahvaNainen and African Care ry, from which the data is collected. In order to explore the said strategies, this research employs both an acculturation frame-work and the framework of psychological adaption. The data is collected using both social surveys and focus groups interviews. Thus, being both quantitative and qualita-tive in nature. Results indicate that the most preferred acculturation strategy is integra-tion, followed by assimilation as the second-most preferred by participants. However, there is a large variation in choice of strategies depending on different categories, rather than examining the individual results in isolation, it is thus argued that it is highly bene-ficial to combine these with focus group interview results.