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Plotnikova Tatiana Vasilievna, Volga region state university of service, Associate professor of department«Social-cultural service» E-mail: [email protected]
Psychological adaptation of children to the new sociocultural conditions of a multicultural environment
Abstract: This article discusses the concept of “acculturation” and “psychological adaptation”. It highlights the main characteristics and indicators of psychological adaptation to a multicultural environment. It provides an overview of diagnostic methodologies that can help teachers and psychologists working with children to examine the state and to monitor the dynamics of psychological adaptation.
Keywords: psychological adaptation, ethnic identity health, ethnic group, nation
Presently, the human civilization has entered a qualitatively new phase of development, which is characterized by increased internationalization of life, growth of information, cultural and economic exchange and cooperation, migration and demographic processes, increasing number of ethnically mixed families. Education of multiethnic groups in social institutions significantly expands intercultural communication and makes it necessary for children to adapt to the conditions of living in a multicultural society.
In the science, the definition of adaptation to a new (different or foreign) cultural environment uses such concepts as “intercultural adaptation”, “ethno-cultural adaptation”, “foreign cultural adaptation”, “crosscultural adaptation”, and “acculturation”. In the modern psychological science, acculturation means the common mutual interaction of civilizations, one ethnicity’s adoption of the whole or part of the culture of another ethnicity [6; 17].
The most important outcome and purpose of acculturation is a long-term adaptation to living in a foreign culture. It is characterized by relatively
the multicultural environment, tolerance, psychological
sustainable changes in the consciousness of an individual or a group in response to the demands of the environment. Adaptation is usually considered from two angles: psychological (feeling of well-being, self-esteem) and the socio-cultural, which links an individual with others in the new society (behavioral competence in daily life).
Psychological adaptation is the achievement of psychological satisfaction in a new culture. It is reflected in a good state of health, psychological health, as well as a clearly and precisely built sense of personal or cultural identity. N. V. Namazov and A. I. Zhmyrikov define psychological adaptation as a complex dialectical process of interaction between an individual and the environment, which results in an optimal goals and values ratio of the individual and the environment, the realization of intrapersonal potential in specific life conditions with good feelings. [15]
E. E. Budalina views psychological adaptation as a process of changing perceptions of an individual in his or her meta-individual world, as a succession of attitudes during the introduction to another socio-cultural
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environment (“Ego-Repeating”, “Ego-Realizing”, “EgoTransforming”, “Ego-Owning”).
In our opinion, the most complete and detailed characterization of the socio-psychological adaptation is given by V. V. Gritsenko [7]. He understands it as a complex and multidimensional process of interaction between representatives of different cultures, which results in the formation of a new positive social identity, adequately fitting into the changing sociocultural conditions. It is a process of development of personal potential of an individual with his or her active involvement into various activities, into the system of interpersonal relations, socio-cultural and sociopolitical life, finding the conditions for the realization of the needs for self-esteem and self-actualization.
Among success indicators of a psychological adaptation, the scientists name good health, psychological health, a clearly and precisely formed feeling of personal or cultural identity (Sadokhin); a feeling of satisfaction and fullness of life, a positive emotional state, mental health (Stefanenko); psychological and physical well-being (Schmitz) [5]; positive ethnic identity and ethnic tolerance (Lebedeva), a feeling of wellbeing, self-esteem (Berry). V. V. Gritsenko identifies the following indicators of successful adaptation of a person in new social and cultural conditions at a group level: satisfaction with the relationship built with the new environment; positive social (ethnic) identity; positive perception of “We” and positive perception of “they”; intergroup tolerance. As for the indicators of successful social-psychological adaptation of an individual at a personal level, he names the following aspects: actualization of the mature need in self-esteem and selfactualization; satisfaction with professional activities as an essential condition for realizing the need for selfactualization; satisfaction with the meaning of life and optimistic assessment of life situations; high activity, emotional stability, integral locus of control.
The summary of various approaches reveals the following indicators of psychological adaptation: the most important one, in our view, is good psychological health and, in particular, a positive emotional state, positive ethnic identity and ethnic tolerance.
We understand “psychological adaptation of older preschool children to a multicultural environment” as a complex and multidimensional process of interaction of different cultures, which results in the formation of tolerance, perception ofethnic identity in accordance with the new sociocultural conditions, which is characterized by changes in the development of personal potential of
older preschoolers as they get engaged in active gaming activities, the system of interpersonal relationships and socio-cultural environment, providing them positive self-esteem, lesser anxiety and better emotional state.
The analysis of the scientific literature has enabled us to identify the structural components of psychological adaptation to a multicultural environment:
emotional condition, which means ability to regulate oneself, the presence of positive images of “I” and “Others”, skills of self-reflection as a means of selfcognition and a need for self-development ensuring adequate performance of the age, social, and cultural roles by the child;
ethnic identity, which is the awareness of belonging to a certain ethnic community and accepting one’s own ethnicity;
tolerance, which is expressed in the respect and recognition of equality, non-violence and nondomination, and the recognition of the multidimensional diversity of human culture, norms, beliefs, abstaining from making this diversity uniform or from the predominance of a single point of view.
It is required to have a broad empirical basis to work effectively on psychological adaptation of preschoolers. However, unfortunately, diagnostic materials, helping to study its features, and therefore to prevent acculturation stress and to ensure the necessary remedial work, are too scarce.
Therefore, this article discusses the diagnostic techniques we use in practice that can help educators and psychologists to examine the state and to monitor the dynamics of psychological adaptation of children for a timely implementation of corrective and psychopreventive work.
To study the ethnic identity and, in particular, the affective (emotional-evaluative) indicator of psychological adaptation, we used a modified version of the method of the British psychologists G. Tajfel and G. Yagoda (1966), developed and tested by O. L. Romanova [17]. This technique assesses the quality of one’s own group, revealing the attitude towards membership in it, significance of this membership for a child. It helps to examine the adequacy of the “Ego” identification of the child in compliance with his or her external appearance (people’s choice of their nationality), and ethnic preferences of children belonging to ethnic majority and minority ethnic groups (choice of an attractive group).
To examine the ethnic identity, we used a standardized interview because it helps to cover a wide range of problems and to see both cognitive and
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affective indicators of psychological adaptation.
Such conversation, in our view, should include:
— Questions identifying ethnic awareness, i. e. children’s awareness oftheir own ethnic group (especially skin color, appearance, language, customs);
— Questions identifying ethnic identity, i. e. the use of the “ethnic label" or ethnic name, which is based on the perception of oneself as belonging to a group (name of one’s own ethnicity, the parents’ ethnicity);
— Questions studying the affective component of ethnic identity (in relation to ethno-differentiating signs, attitude towards one’s own and other ethnic communities).
We were diagnosed the characteristics ofpsychological tension associated with ethnic identity in the structure of self-consciousness, using “projective methods of self-consciousness structural chain deprivation” developed by V. S. Mukhina and K. A. Khvostov [14]. This method helps not only to identify the child’s adaptation to situations of frustration and to determine the response to deprivation of various structural units of self-consciousness on the part of adults and peers, but also to establish the behavioral specifics in a situation of frustration among representatives of a particular ethnic group depending on the nature of inter-ethnic relations with other ethnic groups currently residing in one geographical and historical area.
In order to determine the level of formation of tolerant attitude in preschool children towards their peers of other ethnicities, we used a methodology for studying tolerance developed by O. A. Ovsyannikova [16].
The method developed by O. A. Ovsyannikova examines the nature of children’s relationships and helps to explore such important indicators ofpsychological adaptation as the level of positive attitudes and personal qualities of a person. This method is built in consideration of age-related manifestation of tolerance in preschool children.
The results of this method were evaluated by three main indicators of the formation of a tolerant attitude of older preschoolers to each other: “Unity with others”; “Willingness to provide verbal or practical support to the peer”; “Equality among the children”.
The “frustration tolerance research method” developed by C. Rosenzweig [13] was used to study the psychological stability, which is one of the indicators of psychological adaptation, psychophysical capacity of children to endure problematic and critical situations. This technique is also aimed at diagnosing the quality and level of neuropsychological resilience of preschoolers against stress and stressful situations, the study of the
capacity to cope with frustrations caused by the change in the usual situation, isolation, deprivation, and various extreme situations.
To research the tolerance and such indicators of psychological adaptation as individual traits (empathy, communicative tolerance, altruism etc.), social and psychological stability (attitudes and values of an individual towards cultural, ethnic, social differences etc.), as well as the symptoms of intolerance in children, we used the “methodology of study of children’s intolerance” and a questionnaire, covering the manifestations of children’s intolerance, developed on the basis of the issues proposed by B. E. Riedon, E. J. Kleptsova [11]. The experts were educators, narrow specialists, pedagogues who work with children and their parents.
Since the negative psycho-emotional condition manifested in anxiety, aggressiveness etc., in our study, we included a test developed by the American psychologists — R. Temml, M. Dorki and V. Amen [10], which helps to diagnose anxiety in a child of 4-7 years old in relation to a number of typical life situations requiring the child to communicate with others.
One ofthe most important indicators ofpsychological adaptation is axiological indicator, which is expressed in a positive self-attitude, in absolute acceptance of one’s own self. To identify the perception system of the child on how the child evaluates him or herself, how the child believes other people evaluate him or her, and how these concepts relate to each other, we used the “Staircase” test [18], which is a modification of the known “selfassessment scale” method developed by D. Rubinstein.
Some authors (O. V. Khukhlaeva, K. Smirnov etc.) believe that one of the signs ofmental health, in particular, the positive psycho-emotional condition, is emotional well-being. In order to determine the level of emotional well-being in children and the degree of their satisfaction with their status in the group, we used the socio-metric test called “Masks” [8], as it helps to identify not only the characteristics of interaction in a kindergarten group, child’s status in the group (leadership or exclusion), but also the satisfaction of children with the place they occupy.
We used the methodology developed by E. V. Kucherova “Emotional well-being of a child in the kindergarten” [9] in order to identify the emotional wellbeing of preschool children in a kindergarten, to have an overall view of the positive and negative emotional state of children in a kindergarten group by reviewing the results of short-term survey, individual interviews and individual experiments with children.
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