Integration patterns in host societies analysed on the basis of alphabet book content for Russian schools in limitrophe states in the first third of the twentieth century

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the content of alphabet books published for Russian-speaking children in Latvia, Estonia and Poland in the 1920s and explains the nexus between socio-cultural context and representation of social environment and children’s interactions to explore strategies of adaptation offered to children. The textbooks were quantified using a target codifier. The results are embedded in the context of theories of intergenerational cultural transmission and integration of minorities. The textbooks published for Russian-speaking children in Poland and Estonia exemplify a classical postfigurative type of intergenerational transmission to ensure group cohesion protecting against assimilation. The model of transmission in alphabet books published in Latvia is based on encouraging a child to establish values and guidelines independently. Thus, Latvian alphabet books allow a child to join a network of tenuous relationships for integration into the dominant culture. Therefore, the study provides a retrospective of strategies of Russian-speaking minorities’ consolidation and integration into dominant societies.