The Different Types of Social Support in Quebec Immigrants' Socio-Professional Integration Process

The objective of the present article is to show how the social network plays different support roles in Quebec immigrants' socio-professional integration. Based on Tardy's (1985) theoretical framework and a qualitative methodology, namely life narratives, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 immigrants to map their social network and its impact on their integration process. The mul-tifaceted model proposed by Tardy (1985) has the advantage of explaining the different functions performed by the social support provided by the entourage and thus makes it possible to better understand how to support the newcomer in question. The results of this research are as follows: First, the integration process happened through interaction with other people, as observed by some previous researchers. The second finding is that according to Tardy's model (1985), immigrants can benefit from many types of social support, including emotional, instrumental, and informational sup-port. Our third finding was related to appraisal support, and it represents one of the essential con-tributions of our article because it has allowed us to highlight how pre-migratory networks (families and transnational links) and post-migratory networks (friends and associations) guided participants' decisions. However, despite the multiple resources immigrants seem to benefit from, this article supports the need for a number of actors to play a role in supporting their integration. Meanwhile, governments and host communities still have a role to play in such a transition.