Perceptions of success among working-class children of immigrants in three cities

Dalia Abdelhady,Amy Lutz

doi:10.1177/14687968211022114

Abstract

This article examines the subjective understanding of success among members of three groups of children of immigrants from Mexico, North Africa and Turkey, in Dallas, Paris and Berlin respectively, by accounting for their educational and early labor market experiences. We utilize neo-assimilation and segmented assimilation theories and highlight their divergence with regards to downward assimilation and frames of reference. We focus on the working-class children of immigrants in the three settings, as they are at the highest risk of downward mobility. We find that frames of reference play a significant role in shaping the subjective understandings of success among the three groups. Despite their disadvantaged position, Mexican Americans in Dallas regard their experiences as successful given their significant departure from their parents’ low status. French North Africans in Paris, on the other hand, emphasize their limited ability to overcome the restrictions imposed on them by French society and especially schools. Doing so, they compare themselves to their French peers who do not have an immigrant background. Children of immigrants from Turkey in Berlin, by comparison, encounter labor market discrimination but feel successful relative to their parents’ generation. We find that the children of immigrants in our study rely on members of their social networks who impact their labor market experiences as their frame of reference. When they compare themselves to their parents or earlier waves of immigrants, the children of immigrants perceive their accomplishments in a positive light. When they compare themselves to mainstream society, however, they emphasize persisting inequalities. Our conclusions emphasize the importance of understanding subjective experiences of success and mobility that have been largely ignored in the migration literature.

Highlights

For the last two decades, immigration scholars have paid ample attention to the socioeconomic integration of the children of immigrants
The theoretical frameworks differ with regard to their views on downward assimilation as the result of discrimination, and the frame of reference when comparing second-generation groups to earlier generations or the dominant group
We focus on three groups of working-class children of immigrants as they are at a higher risk of experiencing downward mobility and the mix of intergenerational mobility and stagnation allow for scrutinizing the ways they rely on different frames of reference

Summary

Introduction

For the last two decades, immigration scholars have paid ample attention to the socioeconomic integration of the children of immigrants. More than a decade later, we find that the children of immigrants’ perceptions continue to be under-utilized in understanding mobility and integration. This article focuses on the subjective understanding of success of three groups of working-class children of immigrants: the children of immigrants from Mexico, North Africa and Turkey in Dallas, Paris, and Berlin respectively. Within these groups, we choose to focus on those who have not attained higher education. Instead of objective measures of parity with other groups, we focus on perceptions of education- and employmentrelated experiences among the children of immigrants in order to delve into their understandings of success. We aim to arrive at a model explaining commonalities in perceptions that can be examined in other contexts and groups

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion