Fears and Difficulties Experienced by Ukrainian Nationals During Their Period of Study in Poland

Abstract

The overall aim of this study is to review problems relating to the acculturation of Ukrainian students during their initial period of study abroad in Poland. More importantly, our objective was to recognize the fears and difficulties these students experience and examine the strategies of coping with major stressors. Based on group interviews we identified four themes, which mainly related to the language barrier, social isolation, discrimination, and financial issues. Our results show that the main acculturation strategy among the students in our sample was integration rather than assimilation, marginalization, or separation. Our respondents actively sought contacts with the locals, for example, by giving up their living quarters in the socially isolated and remote university campus and renting shared accommodation in the city, which made it possible for them to maintain closer links with their Ukrainian friends and to receive social support while also staying open to establishing relationships with Poles and having more opportunities to improve their Polish. At the same time, these students maintained their contacts with family and friends abroad through the Internet. This study also suggests the ways for higher education institutions to improve the services rendered to international students and to support their integration into a new community.

Notes

¹The prejudice of some Poles against Ukrainians is affected by the historic events that took place in the summer of 1943 in Volyn (before World War II the Volyn Province belonged to Poland, now to Ukraine), which resulted in 60,000–70,000 Poles, mostly residents of local villages and towns, being exterminated by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B (OUN-B), led by Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and the Ukrainian population residing in the area. The horrors of this event sank deeply into the consciousness of Poles and strongly reinforced the negative Ukrainian stereotype (Piotrowski, 2000).

²Lviv is a large borderland city in western Ukraine with a population of approximately 800,000. It is also the capital of the Lviv Oblast. It is situated about 90 km from the Poland–Ukraine border. It is well connected with the rest of Ukraine. The time needed to travel, for example, from Rzeszów or Lublin to Lviv, including the time spent on the Schengen (Poland–Ukraine) border, is approximately 5 to 6 hours.

³Ukraine is neither a member of the European Union nor of Schengen, so Ukrainian citizens need visas to enter the Schengen Zone.

⁴After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, the war in Donbass in March 2014, and the time of our research conducted in Poland (May/June 2014), the Hryvnia exchange rate against the zloty dropped by almost 35% (National Bank of Ukraine, 2016).

⁵Karta Polaka (Pole’s Card) is a document confirming belonging to the Polish nation, which may be given to individuals who cannot obtain dual citizenship in their own countries while belonging to the Polish nation according to conditions defined by law, and who do not have prior Polish citizenship or permission to reside in Poland.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sławomir Rębisz

Sławomir Rębisz, PhD, is a sociologist and senior lecturer at the University of Rzeszów, Poland. He is a member of the Faculty of Education. His areas of academic interest include the range and direction of changes in the higher education in Central and Eastern Europe but also in the feelings of loneliness and academic careers.

Paweł Grygiel

Paweł Grygiel, PhD, is a sociologist and an assistant professor in the Educational Research Institute in Warsaw, Poland. His main research interests focus on social networks, peer relations, feeling of loneliness, health stigma, and discrimination.