Paper short abstract:

The aim of the paper is to present the result of the comparative project on the adaptation strategy of Polish migrants living in five European capitals (Berlin, Dublin, London, Oslo, and Stockholm). At the center of study is to understand the mechanism of the success achieving process.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of the paper is to present the results of the comparative research project on the adaptation strategy of Polish migrants living in five European capitals (Berlin, Dublin, London, Oslo, and Stockholm). The target group is composed by the migrants settled down in host countries after accesion of Poland into EU. Majority of the migrants selected for the investigation are well integrated professional people. At the center of the study is to understand the mechanism and circumstances of the success achieving proces, identified both according to objective criteria as well as understanding in term of emic perspective as a subjective well being or individual feeling of satisfaction. Another discussed topic is the transnational context of the integration process. It is interesting to stress here, that success is more often achieved in isolation from the ethnic community established in the host country. Simultaneosly the migrants of success participated frequently in a kind of unformal social net of ethnic relations build in host country/city and maintain strong ties with the home country. Finally, the proces of acculturation among recent succesfull migrants is also discussed with the aim to determine how the social and cultural capital brought by them from the home country has an impact on speed and quality of acquiring competences needed in the host country.