Abstract
Abstract: In recent years, a growing body of literature has investigated psychosocial mediators of adaptation to a host culture. In conclusion with prominent authors in the field (e.g., Geeraert, Li, Ward, Gelfand & Demes, 2019), we assume that considerable sociocultural and psychological adaptation aspects are related to personality, perceived cultural distance, and acculturation orientation.
The objective: This study examines subjective stories of psychosocial adaptation of Czech and Slovak emigrants to Canada. Despite the complexity of sociocultural adaptation, most of the current acculturation research is criticised for lacking a multimethod approach (Chirkov, 2009).
Presented results complement broad combined method research investigating personality and psychosocial acculturation (Cerha, 2021). Methods: Data were collected between the Czech and Slovak communities in Canada between April 2021 and January 2022.
A sample consisted of 47 participants (32 female; Mage 45.3, SD 15.98), residents of six out of 13 Canadian provinces and territories (Alberta 6.4%, British Columbia 42.6%, Manitoba 12.8%, Ontario 25.5%, Quebec10.6%, Yukon 2.1%). Qualitative data were analysed, grouped and clustered using NVivo 12 software.
Results: Qualitative analysis reveals both, similarities and differences between emigrants from former Communist Czechoslovakia (n=15) and emigrants from later democratic successors, the Czech and Slovak republics. The author discusses the underlying patterns in individual motivations and acculturation strategies.
Conclusions In general, this full-bodied qualitative analysis speaks in favour of hypotheses previously captured by metric measures. In addition, it provides us with a deeper understanding of the objectives studied.