Social distance characteristic of muslim migrants in relation to the representatives of the receiving side of the lower Volga region

Chernov Alexander Yurevich

The contradiction between the desire to preserve ethnic and group identity and the need to comply with the economic, social, psychological standards existing in the host society leads to the formation and maintenance of social distance boundaries among migrants. Social distance reflects the gradations and degrees of understanding of closeness and mutual understanding that characterize social and personal relationships. Then social distance is determined by the degree of closeness between groups and individuals, and it measures the influence that groups and individuals have on each other. From a functional point of view, they are perceived by them as a means of optimizing interpersonal interactions, maintaining adherence to traditional values, adaptive manifestation of psychological and socio-psychological properties of a person. At the same time, it is the stylistic features of interaction, value orientations and elements of self-esteem that determine the nature of the boundaries of the social distance in migrants: “optimal”, “narrowed”, “extended”. Being universal, this influence is specifically manifested in different groups of migrants. In the group of labor migrants, it determines the vector towards narrowing the boundaries of the social distance, in the group of migrant students - towards expansion and optimization. In terms of content the difference in the direction of the vectors in the first case can be described as an orientation towards preserving ethnic identity, and in the second, as a search for ways to ensure a tolerant attitude from the “native” people, to become “our own” in the context of the host community. From the point of view of the mechanism of influence, the stylistic features of interaction, value orientations and elements of self-assessment predetermine the differences in the orientation towards the social (labor migrants) and personal (migrants students) focus of the adaptation process. In general, it can be concluded that the boundaries of the social distance of migrants are a manifestation of the characteristics of their self-awareness.

Keywords:migrants, social distance, boundaries of social distance, optimal boundaries of social distance, expanded boundaries of social distance, narrowed boundaries of social distance, social focus, personal focus.