Abstract: the article is devoted to the problem of migration study in American sociology in the end of the 20th and early 21st century. The relevance of this topic is due to the fact that recently there was a return to the consideration of issues related to the integration and adaptation migrants into the host society in sociological science. In the author’s opinion, the scientific attention intensity to this topic is due to the migration crisis that modern Europe and the USA are experiencing as a result of a series of military conflicts in the African continent countries. Out of control migration refugees’ flows led to a revision of the multiculturalism concept and a partial return to the earlier, more rigid concepts, in particular, to the theories of the assimilation of migrants in a host society. Consideration of the migration theories in American historiography allows to reveal the main trends in the evolution of the migrants’ adaptation concepts in the host society. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that in American historiography the migrants’ adaptation problems were dominated by theories of not adaptation but assimilation. At theoretical level this process was considered by American researchers in various aspects: from complete assimilation to strategies of social networks and segmented assimilation. In globalization context, the topic of migration flows and crises has become very relevant, therefore the application of the above concepts to understanding the migrants’ assimilation and adaptation process to a receiving society acquires not only theoretical, but also practical value.
Keywords: sociology of migration, migration flows, migration crisis, adaptation of migrants, migrants’ integration strategies into the receiving society