Navigating New Horizons of Socio-Cultural Transition: Information seeking behaviour of migrant women in the context of integration

The doctoral study examines migrant womens’ integration through an information lens, focusing on their information seeking behaviour. Adopting a socio-cultural perspective, the study investigates how socio-cultural factors such as gender, communication style, language, and socialization patterns influence migrant women’s interactions with information in a new country. The focus on migrant women is particularly important, as they often face isolation due to domestic responsibilities and child-rearing duties, which limit their ability to pursue work or educational opportunities. This, in turn, hinders their chances of learning the local language and engaging with the broader society. Such challenges not only negatively impact their overall well-being but also create interconnected obstacles that make their integration into the new community more difficult. The study specifically targets South-Asian immigrant women in Finland and Middle-Eastern refugee women in Sweden. The results are presented in four original articles, each exploring the interconnections between the context of integration, the concept of information-seeking behavior, and the perspective of socio-cultural factors influencing these processes.
The study employs a mixed-methods approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative research designs. The ontological assumption underlying this research is social constructionism, which posits that truth is constructed through social interactions, incorporating multiple, interconnected perspectives and realities. A total of 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted: 12 with immigrant women from Finland and 18 with refugee women from Sweden. Additionally, a survey was administered, yielding 232 responses from immigrant and refugee women residing in Finland and Sweden. The interview data were analyzed using Nvivo through thematic analysis, while the survey data were analyzed using SmartPLS, with regression analysis applied to explore relationships between variables.
This study brings the discussion to the forefront regarding the information needs, challenges and consequences for migrant women during the integration in a host country. The primary focus of information seeking revolves around needs related to employment, health and language learning. The socio-cultural factors cause various information challenges such as information overload, exposure to negative or irrelevant information, and limited access to appropriate sources or networks. However, they also bring positive aspects, such as creating opportunities to build multilingual skills, and encouraging the use of diverse cultural knowledge to access broader information resources. The study contributes to Library and Information Science (LIS) and integration literature from a socio-cultural perspective. This phenomena highlights the necessity of women-oriented integration policies with more focus on gender-sensitive support, tailored services and specific programs for the improvement of overall well-being of migrant women in the society.