Nowadays, every fifth German citizen has migration background, while Islam has become the second largest religion in the country. The number of Muslims increases every year, which raises concerns of the local population. Integration of Muslim migrants appears to be a great challenge for the country. Low education level, high religiousness, specifics of Islamic culture, often negative attitude toward this migration group – all of this creates problems with their integration. Modern Germany is an immigration country where integration policy is developed and implemented. The policy is oriented towards establishing conditions for successful integration of Muslims and shaping stable positive opinion about this group of migrants among the local population. German government structures regularly carry out studies of the Muslim population and the specifics of its linguistic, professional and social integration, which allow adapting integration programs. Using the example of Turkish migrants, who represent the largest group of Muslims in Germany (63%), the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees carried out studies that demonstrate specifics and difficulties of their adaptation, as well as successes of integration of the second and the third generations of Muslims. The peak of recent migration activity happened in 2015–2016, where more than 70% of migrants applying for the refugee status were Muslims. In this situation, the most valuable thing appears to be a successful implementation of the integration programs in the spheres of labour, education and socialisation. Taking into account demographic difficulties forecasted for Germany in the coming decades, the living standards and economy stability of the country will depend on the successful integration of migrants.
Modern Germany plays active role in global migration movement and public opinion has an important part in the adaptation and integration of immigrants. Their count has seen yearly increases and this will continue, also due to children born in their families in Germany. The country has seen debates ongoing for the last 10 years regarding the necessity of the immigration. The debates in political circles could not help but touch ordinary German citizens who meet the foreigners both in professional and everyday life. Nowadays Internet is the most convenient place for the local population to express its opinion. People can use website comments and blogs to openly express their position and get feedback from their fellow citizens. Migration crisis of 2015–2016 showed that Germans care about what’s happening in their country, they actively defend their opinion and urge the government to hear them. It is expressed in numerous discussions taking place on the Internet. This article analyses German public opinion based on publications in periodic mass media during last five years (2015–2019) and also their discussions on the Internet. A spectrum of the main problems is established which mainly cause debates: necessity of admitting refugees, country’s capacity for their integration, increase of Muslim population in the country etc.
The article examines the relationship between migrants to Russia and the host society, using surveys taken in the spring of 2017 and in the autumn of 2020. According to German-speaking authors, social integration is one of the stages of forming comprehensive integration of foreigners. Public opinion surveys show that migrants from Central Asia are the most undesirable for Russians. That is why the article gives comparative study of social integration of immigrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan compared to other post-Soviet states (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Ukraine). The central focus is given to migrants’ self-perception of their place in the Russian society and to evaluation of quality of interpersonal interaction with the citizens. The results obtained from the study show that migrants from Central Asia are the least integrated into the host society and more oriented towards the sending state compared to migrants from other countries. Also, despite reasonable Russian language proficiency, migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan communicate with the representatives of their own ethnos in every aspect of their lives more often than migrants from other Soviet republics. At the same time, they identify themselves with the citizens of Russia less frequently. The reason for such low social integration of Central Asian migrants compared to other migrant groups could be their desire to return to their homeland and that they may view migration to Russia just as a way of survival in the unfavourable conditions in their country of origin.
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