Experiencing the acculturation stress by polish children in german schools : between integration and marginalization

Abstract

The article explores the issues of the acculturation stress experienced by the children living in Gubin (in the Polish-German borderland), whose parents decided to educate and fulfill their children’s obligatory school duty in the German cultural environment in the neighbouring Guben. It has been assumed that Polish children’s systematic education (regularly living with their parents in their homeland) in German school: (a) contributes to their applying different acculturation strategies in various areas of life, (b) becomes the source of a constant and/or recurrent acculturation stress, which the child at early school age (with no support from the family and the environment of the admitting culture) is not prepared to manage both in the psycho-physical (individual) and social aspects.