The Influence of Acculturation Strategies, Ethnic Identity and Cultural Distance on the Socio-cultural Adaptation of Arab Students

Background: Adaptation to the educational space of a university is a process that is a prerequisite and a way of socialization, allowing international students to actively engage in various elements of the social environment. This process can be made more complicated as a result of existing linguistic, every day, climatic, intercultural, interethnic, and motivational barriers. This research studies the relationship between acculturation strategies, socio-cultural adaptation, ethnic identity, cultural distance among students from arabic countries (Morocco, Syria, Egypt). Methods: . The questionnaire included scales for assessing acculturation attitudes, ethnic identity, cultural distance, and sociocultural adaptation. The following techniques were used during the study: methodology of J. Finney, measuring the severity of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992; Phinney & Ong, 2007), scales for measuring cultural distance (Wark & Galliher, 2007), questionnaire measuring acculturation strategies for migrants (Berry, 1997; Berry, 2005), scales for measuring sociocultural adaptation (Ward, Kennedy, 1999). The overall number of respondents was 248 (56 from Syria, 84 from Egypt, 108 from Morocco). The average age of the respondents is 28 years (min – 20, max – 34 years). Conclusion: Using correlation and regression analysis, we found that cultural distance is interconnected with sociocultural adaptation. However, among young migrants from arabic countries,ethnic identity and acculturation strategies are not linked to sociocultural adaptation. As a whole, our research shows the specific of adaptation of young arabs in relation to their host country.