| Abstract: | This analysis is pursued in the framework of an interrelated multidimensional model which includes 5 main components: 1) dimensions of adjustment, 2) range of adjustment, 3) levels of adjustment, 4) typology of aggregate adjustment, and 5) indicators of mobility and variation in the refugee adjustment. Arab internal refugees in Israel, including their characteristics and patterns of adjustment in the host communities as well as in Israeli society, are studied. Social, psychological, and socioeconomic adjustments are separated out and show the importance of the linkage between adjustment patterns at both the communal and the societal levels. The findings indicate that processes of adjustment at the communal and the societal levels are not necessarily conjunctive and symmetric. At the societal level, socioeconomic adjustment occurs relatively more rapidly than social adjustment. At the communal level, inter-marriage with locals lags behind friendship relationships and mutual visits. Psychological adjustment rates in between these 2. Cultural and linguistic compatibility with the host community are crucial positive factors for refugee adjustment. Cultural, linguistic, and national compatibility with the host community may have paradoxically indirect negative effects on the refugee psychological adjustment. High background compatibility generates high expectations among the refugees, which may be easily transferred into alienation, when faced with a different situation than expected; the greater the gap between the expected and the actual, the more the alienation. |
