The effects of socio-cultural contacts of Turks with their host-society in the Netherlands on cultural transmission process

Labour deficit which had been happened in West European economies after World War II, was started to be recovered by migrant labour since 1960s. By mass labour migration from Turkey to Europe within 1961-1974, it caused to emerge a permenant Turkish population in Europe through settling into the countries they went to work, continuing migration process through family reunification and marriage. One of the countries that has permanent Turkish population depending labour migration is Netherlands. In this study it is examined that at which level socio-cultural contacts of Turks living in the Netherlands with Dutch society is and how these contacts affect maintaining Turkish language and culture and transmission to next generations. Moreover, it is studied the effects of socio-cultural contacts setting with Dutch society on the level of adoption of Dutch culture. Field research of this study which both quantitative and qualitative methods were used, was conducted in the Netherlands. In the quantitative part of research, among Turks living in the Netherlands regarding variables such as generation, sex, birth place it was determined 532 attendants through non-probability simple random sampling and data was gathered by survey technique. In the qualitative part of research, within snowball sampling, data was gathered by semi-structured interview technique among 21 opinion leaders who represent various groups of Turkish community living in the Netherlands. While gathered quantitative data were analyzed through SPSS 22 program, qualitative data were evaluated in the context of theory-based themes and sub-themes. According to results, the average of the level of maintaining Turkish culture among Turks living in the Netherlands, is higher than the average of adopting Dutch culture. However, the socio-cultural contacts of Turks living in the Netherlands with Dutch society become much frequent from generation to generation and in a relation to this contacts, adopting Dutch culture increases. In a conclusion, it is possible to state that maintenance and transmission of national culture and the level of adopting Dutch culture have a significant difference among generations in Turks living in the Netherlands. However, it is also possible to state that the level of integration by both sustaining their national culture and adopting host society's culture, increase toward first generation to third generation. Key Words: Migration, transnational migration, socio-cultural contact, acculturation, cultural transmission, social integration, Turkish culture, Dutch culture, Turks living in the Netherlands, Turks in Europe