THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IMMIGRANTS’ INFORMATION PRACTICES ABOUT THE HOST COUNTRY AND THEIR INTERNET USE

The study was made within the ERASMUS+ KA partnership project “Improving the initial education of adult immigrants”. This study is based on the anonymous written survey with 1127 legal adult immigrants from outside the European Union in 6 countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy and Belgium, conducted in 2017. The aim of the project was - to create and to test innovative educational tools based on digital technology for immigrants to acquire basic knowledge and understanding about host country’s sociocultural life.
Data collection method: written survey.

Data analysis methods:
Non- parametric and descriptive statistical analyses.

The aim:
The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between internet use and immigrants information about hosting country before coming.

Sample:
The survey was made with 1127 immigrants from 90 different countries from outside of the EU, vast majority (24.4 %) of which were from Russian, 10.2 % from Ukraine, 8.6% from Moldova; 3.6% from Morocco, 3.5%; from former French colonies in Africa; 3.4% from Belarus; Syria – 2.9%; Afghanistan – 2.6%; India -2.2%; Turkey – 1.9%; Iraq – 1.8 % and other countries. Gender representation was comparatively equal: 51.4 % female and 48,6 % male. The youngest respondent was 16 at the time of the survey and the oldest 75 years old (average age 32.11 years). For better analysis age groups were formed as following: 16-24 years- 34.9%; 25-35 years – 33.9 %; 36 and older – 31.2 %, among which 1% of the respondents have no education at all, 6.4% have incomplete secondary; 11.7% are with secondary; 12.8% have graduated from vocational school and 59.9% with higher university education (8.2 % picked other). For the analysis education was united into two groups:
1. no education, secondary and secondary incomplete (31.2 %);
2. vocational and higher education (68.7%).

A variety of questions were asked in the questionnaire, but this article analyzes only the data that helps answer the raised questions.

Results:
Statistical data analysis showed that the majority of immigrants lack information about the health care, employment services, what is the reason they are often excluded from social life of the host country. Internet and digital technologies play the most important role as for the information search, since it allows to avoid isolation, allows to get to know a new country and its culture.