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Multiculturalism and migration in Post-Soviet Russia
All contemporary societies are now culturally plural, with many ethnic, cultural, and religious groups attempting to live together in one civic space. The attention paid to how a reasonable degree of mutual acceptance can be achieved among these groups has been extensively examined by many disciplines. Psychologists have also examined these issues, using concepts such as ethnic attitudes, multicultural ideology, perceived threat/security, and prejudice. This study continues this psychological approach, while being rooted in the conceptualizations and findings available from these other disciplines. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia and other former Soviet republics faced new challenges of achieving mutual acceptance and adaptation among members of the larger society (representatives of the ‘host’ nations) and members of other ethnic groups as well as immigrants. In this paper, we portray the current context, including the immigration dynamics in contemporary Russia, as well as a description of migrants and the problems they face. We will then present the theoretical scheme underlying the study, including the hypotheses, the research methods, the main variables and the results of structural equation modeling.