Social and Psychological Perspectives on the Acculturation of Immigrants - Different theoretical and methodological approaches

Part II: Russian-speaking immigrants in different countries

February 12th – 13th 2007

Contents and Aims of the Course: The aim of the course is to offer a cross-disciplinary overview of the experiences and integration of Russian-speaking immigrants in different countries. The course consists of lectures and a workshop, where students get feed-back from the teachers and other participants on their own projects in the same subject area. The teachers represent five different countries of settlement and different disciplines (social psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology and anthropology) and approaches to the field of study (e.g. quantitative, qualitative methods).

Participation and Credits: The lectures are open to all, the workshops only to students from various disciplines working on their Master’s or Doctoral Thesis. Attending all lectures as well as the workshop gives 1 study point. Participation in the lectures only gives three marks in the “lecture passport” at the Dept. of Social psychology (six such marks give 1 study point). Those participants who are not students of the University of Helsinki, or universities which are members of the so called JOO-program are also welcome to participate in the course (also the workshops), but they will only get a certificate of their participation instead of credits.

Registration: Students who will attend both the lectures and the workshop can register for the course to antero.olakivi@helsinki.fi. In addition to their registration, these students should submit electronically a short (maximum 2 pages) description of their work. Deadline for registration and for the submission of abstracts is January 31st 2007.
OBS! Students attending only the lectures do not have to register.

Teachers of the course:

Professor Xenia Chryssochou (Panteion University, Athens, Greece)

Professor Gabriel Horenczyk (School of Education, Hebrew University, Israel)

M.Psych. Tamara Kinunen (Dept. of Social Psychology, University of St. Petersburg, Russia)

Docent Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti (Dept. of Social Psychology, University of Helsinki)

Professor Karmela Liebkind (Dept. of Social Psychology, University of Helsinki)

Professor Tamar Rapoport (Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Univ. of Helsinki, Finland)

PhD Aune Valk (Open University Centre University of Tartu Research, University of Tartu, Estonia)

Course program:

Monday, February 12th 2007

(Place: Mariankatu 11, lecture hall 9)

10.15-11.00 Lecture 1
Russian immigrants in Finland: Acculturation and Integration
Docent Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti

11.15-12.00 Lecture 2
Russian immigrants in Israel: Biculturalism and adaptation
Professor Gabriel Horenczyk

13.30-14.15 Lecture 3
Memory Work in Immigration: Personal Stories of "Russian" Homecomers in Israel
Professor Tamar Rapoport

14.30-15.15 Lecture 4
Pre-migration experiences among potential migrants from Russia to Finland
M.Psych. Tamara Kinunen

Tuesday, February 13th

(Place: Mariankatu 11, seminar room 2)

10.15-11.00 Lecture 5
Russian immigrants in Estonia: The process of Naturalization
PhD Aune Valk

11.15-12.00 Lecture 6
Russian immigrants in Greece
Professor Xenia Chryssochou

13.15-16.00 WORKSHOP
(Place: Group 1: Mariankatu 11, seminar room 2, Group 2: Mariankatu 11, seminar room 1)

• group discussions based on the students’ own projects