Aim: The aim of this article is to present adaptation problems faced by bilingual representatives of ethnolinguistic minorities – from a socio-psychological perspective. Methods: This text is a review of literature on the subject matter under discussion. Results: Referring to the results of research conducted in the field, attention is paid to the most common adaptation problems from a socio-psychological perspective experienced by representatives of various ethnolinguistic minorities in bilingual education. The text also discusses issues related to the concept of bilingualism as well as its typology, outlining the differentia specifica existing between additive bilingualism and subtractive bilingualism. Conclusion: Bilingual education is an active, creative process that draws on linguistic, communicative and cognitive resources of the developing child (F. Genesee 2003). For that reason, quite a few studies have been carried out on simultaneous acquisition of two languages; equally interesting would be research results conducted among representatives of ethnolinguistic minorities in trilingual or quadrilingual language acquisition.