Integration Of Immigrant Youth Research Articles

Does multiculturalism help immigrant youth engage in school? Multicultural paradox in the welfare state

AbstractResearch thus far has presented inconsistent findings regarding the effect of multiculturalism on the integration of immigrant youth; however, few studies have focused on making sense of these inconsistencies and further developing research in this field. In the current study, we focus on the possibility that policy arrangements for social welfare may condition the effect of multiculturalism in different directions. Specifically, we hypothesize that the policy mix of generous welfare spending and strong multiculturalism may not aid in the acculturation of immigrant youth in the host country. Cross‐national multilevel data from 28,879 immigrant youth in 29 countries were analysed. The results indicate that immigrant youth show higher school engagement in countries with stronger institutionalised multiculturalism. However, this pattern varies depending on the social welfare policies of individual countries. When strong multiculturalism is combined with generous welfarism in a country, it does not positively affect the school engagement of immigrant youth. These findings align with our speculation that multiculturalism is likely to work better in liberal economies than in generous welfare states.

Integration of immigrant youth in Sweden: does sport participation really have an impact?

ABSTRACT Sport participation for youth with immigrant background is often argued to play an important role for migrant youth integration into their new host society. Although few well sampled longitudinal studies has been conducted. The aim of this study was to study the impact that sport participation has on two integration-related outcomes (problem behaviours and native friends) by using the Swedish version of the longitudinal CILS4EU study. The multi-group latent growth curve models showed that although youth active or starting in sport independent of immigrant background did less problem behaviours and had more native friends than their peers with the same immigrant background that was not engaged in sport. However, the trajectories were very similar and often very close to zero, which makes it difficult to claim that sport participation has any significant impact on integration in the Swedish society.

Linguistic and cultural rights of immigrant students in Catalonia: perspectives and practices of educators in four elementary schools

ABSTRACT A growing and increasingly diverse immigrant population in Spain, and in particular in the region of Catalonia, places new and challenging demands on the educational system. In this study, we use a minority language rights framework to examine how Catalan educators conceptualize the linguistic and cultural rights of immigrant students, and the instructional and organizational practices they use to respond to the needs of these students within Catalan immersion programs. Interviews with teachers and principals and observations in classrooms and schoolyards were carried out in four elementary schools in two urban areas in Catalonia. Findings indicated that educators were adhering to a policy focus on the goal of social cohesion through Catalan language use and instruction; however, neither instructional strategies for non-native speakers of Catalan, nor use of their home languages for instructional support, were much in evidence. Although occasional efforts were reported to recognize students’ home cultures in celebrations and activities at school, educators tended to view the home cultures in largely deficit terms. De facto segregation in schools serving almost exclusively immigrant students was identified by educators as a challenge both for elementary school instruction and for subsequent social integration of immigrant youth into Catalan society.

The Integration of Immigrant Youth in Schools and Friendship Networks

This study examines the degree to which immigrant youth are integrated in school settings at the dyadic (reciprocity and isolation), network (popularity, centrality, social status), and institutional levels (connection to school, extracurricular activities). The study includes 43,123 youth across 64 schools with immigrant populations from the 1994–1995 Wave I in-school survey of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Survey-weighted logistic, negative binomial, and linear regression models were used to estimate the effects of race/ethnicity, immigrant generation, friendship composition, and school composition on integration at dyadic, network, and institutional levels. In general, the success of second-generation youth in navigating their school social contexts provides evidence of positive processes of immigrant integration. However, important differences across racial and ethnic groups suggest that these successes are most prominent for Asian youth, while other groups may not experience processes of social integration equally. In addition, same race/ethnicity friendships functioned to facilitate social integration, while same-generation friendships placed youth from immigrant families at increased risk for marginalization. Results highlight the need for schools to consider how to build connections across immigrant generations and to draw on the strengths of immigrant youth to contribute to school communities.

‘Gaza in Oslo’: Social imaginaries in the political engagement of Norwegian minority youth

In the winter of 2008/09 thousands of people took to the streets of Oslo to demonstrate against the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Young people of visible minority and Muslim background were central actors in these demonstrations. The public expression of Muslim identities and symbols during the demonstrations along with clashes between some of the young demonstrators and the police fuelled the already polarized debate concerning the integration of immigrant youth and Islamic radicalism existing in the Norwegian public realm. Using data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork and web-ethnography we follow the engagement of youth from a multi-ethnic Oslo mosque both online and offline. In critical dialogue with perspectives on political contention and transnational political activism, we analyse this transnational mobilization in terms of the ‘social imaginaries’ that mediated engagement with the Gaza question: ‘the global Muslim imaginary’, ‘secular leftist internationalism’ and ‘integration nations’.

Informal Agencies of Socialization and the Integration of Immigrant Youth into Society: An Example from Israel

This article explains why informal voluntaristic agencies of socialization are considered the most adequate for facilitating the absorption of immigrants into society. The major argument is that the structural characteristics of informal agencies, such as moratorium, symmetry, expressiveness, voluntarism and multiplexity, have made them a setting for reciprocal encounters between veterans and newcomers. Such encounters generate a sense of dignity among immigrants and increase their capacity to struggle for economic and political absorption on their own terms.

Informal Agencies of Socialization and the Integration of Immigrant Youth into Society: An Example from Israel

Informal Agencies of Socialization and the Integration of Immigrant Youth into Society: An Example from Israel