Study on the concept, methodology and organization of monitoring integration in Estonian society

Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, the Institute of Baltic Studies (IBS) is studying the methodology and organization of the concept of Estonian integration monitoring.

During the period 2000–2017, seven monitoring of the integration of Estonian society has been carried out to analyze the integration processes of Estonian society; their results have helped to formulate integration policy objectives, measures and indicators and to collect data for monitoring.

The main question of the research carried out here is: to what extent is the theoretical approach, methods and organization of the current monitoring to assess the integration policy of Estonia in the changing demographic, socio-economic and cultural context?

The study will analyze how integration monitoring could look in 2020 and 2023-2030.

The study consists of three parts:

1) organization of monitoring, including data collection, use of registers, possible cooperation with Statistics Estonia;

2) the theoretical concept of monitoring;

3) monitoring methodology, including questionnaire and validation and refinement thereof.

The study will analyze secondary sources – monitoring so far, survey questionnaires, measurement of integration outside Estonia, and involve experts (both integration and narrower) in the field through interviews, seminars and focused surveys.

As a result of the study, operational recommendations and proposals will be prepared that can be used by the Ministry of Culture for monitoring the integration of Estonian society in the period 2020-2030.