The study will be quantitative and longitudinal. Children, adolescents and their parents will be interviewed before and after the respective transitions, in order to study causal influences in the acculturation process. A particular strength of the project is the focus on positive development, i.e., the study of factors that lead towards a better and more optimal adjustment of social groups. In Germany, Russian-Jewish immigrants, ethnic German immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and Turkish migrants will be studied. In Israel, Russian-Jewish immigrants, Ethiopian-Jewish immigrants, and the Arab population will be studied. A native group will also be interviewed in both countries and will constitute a reference group.

A comparison between different social (immigrant or minority) groups in Israel and Germany, together with a native group in each context is a design that allows individual resources, group-specific and context-specific factors in coping with the challenges of the respective transition, and their relevance for the acculturation process among immigrants, to be disentangled.

This project is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is part of a larger research consortium on "Migration and Societal Integration". The research consortium includes several Universities in Germany (Universities of Bielefeld, Chemnitz, Jena, Leipzig, and Mannheim), and Israel (Universities of Tel Aviv and Haifa). The results will be made public for politics, researchers, and media through a web-portal that is part of the project funding.

Here you find selected results of our study for downloading (in German, Turkish and Russian).