Language proficiency and social identity in Russian-Hebrew and Russian-German preschool children

This chapter explores how the affects of different migrant adolescent groups in two major immigration countries Israel and Germany in relation to the host societies general attitude towards them and vice versa. Studies on the concept of acculturation can be structured by categorizing them into three different types, namely studies dealing with acculturation conditions, acculturation orientations, and acculturation outcomes. According to Bourhis et al. both countries share the same state ideology regarding migration: an ethnist ideology. The State of Israel has always been an immigration country. The idea of the early Zionists was to reunite the scattered Jewish communities to form a new nation. The vast majority of Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrants who migrated to Israel were of Jewish heritage, reflecting immigration policies of the State of Israel. In their large cross-cultural study on immigrant youth Sam, Vedder, Ward, and Horenczyk describe two aspects of an individual's well-being: Life satisfaction and self-esteem.