The identity of immigrants from the Middle East as a challenge for integration with societies of the host countries

Abstract

The article presents the theoretical and methodological approach, which is different from the approaches that exist in the available scholar literature. The subject matter of the article is integration of immigrants from the Middle East living in the selected European countries, that from the author’s point of view should be evaluated not according to the previous models, but through the degree of identity creation and sense of citizenship. The main hypothesis verified within the conception of the article is the assumption that the identity of migrants from the Middle East in European Union countries (EU) is strongly connected with a culturally different environment. It complicates their integration with host societies and causes the growth of social problems. Following the author’s point of view, the formation of civic attitudes among immigrants is more effective integration activity than the acculturation models adopted so far, such as assimilation or separation. The use of this research perspective will help to enrich the existing knowledge about immigrants, the causes of immigration and the EU policy towards them, as well as to find possible solutions for the effective integration of immigrants in the EU Member States.

Keywords

• immigrant
• identity
• collective identity
• integration
• migration policy
• Middle East