Eventual integration or delayed transit: Interaction of residents in reception centres with their new environment in Serbia

The purpose of our study was an analysis of reception centre residents’ attitudes in the Republic of Serbia toward the state and the local population. Using a questionnaire, we tried to identify the differences in respondents’ attitudes toward their new environment depending on their various socio-demographic characteristics. The survey was conducted in the spring of 2019 on a sample of 173 residents of centres using the PAPI method, face-to-face, and voluntary response sampling. The data obtained are the result of descriptive and inferential analysis and were processed by the SPSS statistical data processing program. Our statistical analysis showed that attitudes of reception centre residents toward their new environment may not correlate strongly with their mother tongue, knowledge of foreign languages, marital status, number of family members, number of minor children in the family, work status, or religion. Instead, it is more likely to depend on their level of education, age, nationality, and gender. Such results show us where we need to improve interaction, especially among women, young people, and people with a low level of education. We can also suggest that, under favourable conditions, these three categories of reception centre residents will be the first to leave the Republic of Serbia, which they probably see exclusively as a transit country. At the same time, older people and people with a high level of education (most likely men) are more likely to integrate into their new environment in the Republic of Serbia. The more interaction they have with local people and institutions and the higher the quality of that interaction, the more likely they are to integrate.