Lietuvos etninių grupių adaptacijos ypatumai

The main goals of the authors of the suggested project regard researching adaptation strategies and the factors of choosing particular strategies. In different countries, the post-communist social change consists of varying tendencies and intensity. Non-titular nationalities in the new states have encountered the double adaptation stress: adaptation to market economy, and adaptation to new ethno politics and minority status. The range of social criteria is used as a way to measure and compare the adaptation processes of ethnic group members in different social (and ethnic) contexts. The abstract presents a sociological research of the adaptation of the major ethnic groups in Lithuania: Lithuanians, Poles, and Russians. The methodology of the project was to combine acculturation theory with analysis of social stratification. This attitude enabled achieving the main goal: discovery of differences in social adaptation among the different ethnic group members. Social adaptation here is understood primarily as social mobility and satisfaction with one’s social position. Thanks to a specific research model and sampling the empirical data have been collected. The disproportional stratified sampling enabled to survey the analogous samples taken from each ethnic group. This allowed a reliable comparison. The in-depth interview is an inevitable complementary means in a project like this, since they alone can reveal cases of special social success/failure (that are mostly inaccessible for quantitative studies). Respondents of all three ethnic groups were surveyed in different places of Lithuania. This was the first stage of a larger research idea. So far, no studies based on this methodology have been conducted in Lithuania; after completion of the research, it is intended to repeat it in a few other countries.The project results should be enriched by further research as well as used in theoretical studies of ethnic processes; the materials developed here will also be forwarded to the policy group that works on integration of national minorities. Separately described are ethnic classification, social adaptation and status groups and present the acculturation theory of J. Berry; they make the methodological framework of the project. In introducing the empirical results, the tendencies that best illustrate the differences among the ethnic groups are presented. The reviewed topics include the identification tendencies among the major ethnic groups, ethnic tolerance, and evaluation of its own social position and perception of its change. The research revealed that members of the ethnic groups differ in perceiving their status and its change; that a certain ethnic isolation exists; that the subjectively perceived deterioration of social position correlates to marginality