Social capital and acculturation strategies as factors of socio-cultural adaptation of migrants from Central and Central Asia in the Moscow region

Abstract

The article presents the study of the relationship of social capital of migrants from the Asian former USSR republics with their acculturation strategies and their socio-cultural adaptation. Based on the wide literature review, we suggested that two types of individual social capital of migrants (“bridging” and “bonding”), depending on the combination of their levels (high-low), may lead to the preference of one of the four acculturation strategies (integration, assimilation, separation, marginalization) and further contribute to or hinder socio-cultural adaptation. This study demonstrated that these two types of individual social capital (“bridging” and “bonding”) associated with three of the four acculturation strategies. In addition, the “bridging” social capital has an indirect positive effect on socio-cultural adaptation in which the mediator is the integration strategy. The “bonding” social capital has not demonstrated a statistically significant indirect effect on socio-cultural adaptation of migrants from the Asian former USSR republics.

Keywords

• bridging social capital
• bonding social capital
• migration
• acculturation strategies