Second-generation Minority Research Articles

Averting, stepping-up or shielding: school strategies and intensive minority parenting among second-generation minority Danish parents

ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic fieldwork and life-story interviews, this article examines parenting and school strategies of the emergent second generation of minority Danish parents and how they are shaped by their generational position. Across socio-economic differences, the participating parents are highly engaged in their children’s schooling and well-being, practising an ‘intensive parenting’ widespread in the contemporary social generation and also dominant among majority Danish parents. Yet they also draw on their first-hand knowledge of being minority children in Danish schools and society to protect their children against discrimination against Muslims and negative influence from both majority and minority Danes. The article suggests that the parents thus engage in ‘intensive minority parenting’ and employ different school strategies: an ‘averting strategy’ characterised by fending off negative influences and antagonists in multi-ethnic neighbourhoods; a ‘stepping-up strategy’ characterised by performing middle-class parenthood in (upper)middle-class neighbourhoods; and a ‘shielding strategy’ characterised by carving out a safe new cultural space in ‘free schools’ with other second-generation parents. Differing from the paths of ‘segmented assimilation’, these strategies do not depend on ethnic background, but rather on the parents’ current social environment and interrelated factors of their own experiences with school, further education, their family and broader society.

Acculturation Among Finnish Somalis: An Imitation Game Inquiry Into Bicultural Fluency

According to acculturation theories, members of immigrant second-generation minorities hold a broader cultural competence — a bicultural fluency — for living in two cultures, compared to members of the native majority who are mainly limited to the mainstream experience only. In this paper, we employ a new research method to acculturation research — the Imitation Game — to investigate this claim. Our case concerns second-generation Finnish Somalis and majority Finns. With a mixed-methods approach, we examine degrees of cultural competence among members of each group in their mutual interactions. Contrary to acculturation theories, the second-generation Finnish Somali cohort does not display greater bicultural fluency than the Finnish native majority. We show evidence of how cultural fragmentation among the Finnish Somalis and the prevailing social distance between them and majority Finns limit their chances of developing bicultural fluency. The result demonstrates partial sociocultural marginalization among the Finnish Somali second generation, and may indicate a higher risk of marginalization among second-generation immigrants than acculturation theories have suggested. This study presents the Imitation Game as a new way of outlining the sociocultural foundations of ethnic relations in the context of migration and integration, and pinpointing potential domains of social exclusion between or cultural division within groups.

‘This Society Has Taken Me.’ Intensive Parenting and Fragile Belonging among Second-Generation Minority Danish Parents

Based on life-history interviews and fieldwork among second-generation minority Danish parents from different ethnic backgrounds, this article explores changes in parenting norms and practices between first-generation and second-generation minority Danish parents. The second-generation parents generally experience that, compared to their own parents and contemporary first-generation parents, they have a more ‘open’ and ‘engaged’ relationship with their children and their schools, making them feel intimately shaped by Danish society. Contesting integration and governmentality approaches, the article takes an Eliasian figurational approach, illuminating the historical changes in and current characteristics of the relationship between state, school, children, and parents that shapes the Danish ‘state-school figuration’. It explores how these second-generation minorities’ entanglement in the interdependencies of this figuration—first as children and later as parents—makes it valuable and sensible for them to engage in the ‘intensive parenting’ applauded in Danish schools. Yet, due to these interdependencies, their intensive parenting involves both distancing themselves from and acting as cultural brokers for first-generation parents, as well as using their own insider knowledge to protect their children from negative influence, stigmatisation, and discrimination.

Transnational and Local Co-ethnic Social Ties as Coping Mechanisms Against Perceived Discrimination - A Study on the Life Satisfaction of Turkish and Moroccan Minorities in the Netherlands.

Perceived ethnic discrimination is known to decrease minorities’ life satisfaction. This research investigates the extent to which minorities’ local and transnational co-ethnic social ties mitigate the negative effects of perceived discrimination on life satisfaction. Put differently, focusing on the experiences of Turkish and Moroccan minorities, we discuss whether co-ethnic social ties, both locally and transnationally embedded, can be considered as coping mechanisms against perceived discrimination. Furthermore, we investigate whether these mechanisms work differently for first- and second-generation minorities. Using Netherlands Longitudinal Life-course Study, we reveal that perceived discrimination is positively associated with local co-ethnic social ties in Netherlands which consequently predicts higher life satisfaction for both generations. Surprisingly, we also show that only among the second generation perceived discrimination is associated with stronger transnational co-ethnic social ties, but not the first generation. Having these transnational ties however are beneficial for life satisfaction of both generations. Consequently, we highlight the importance of recognizing transnational embeddedness of minorities and studying the effects transnational co-ethnic social ties on subjective well-being outcomes especially for second-generation minorities.

Incorporation of Immigrants and Second Generations into the French Labour Market: Changes between Generations and the Role of Human Capital and Origins

This article analyses the labour market incorporation of migrants and second-generation minorities in France. Using the 2013–2017 French Labour Surveys and the 2014 adhoc module, we focus on labour market outcomes—activity, employment, occupation and subjective overqualification—and measure the gaps between ethnic minorities and the majority group by origins, generation and by gender. In order to elucidate the mechanisms behind these gaps and explain ethnic disadvantages for immigrants, we take into account different factors, such as education, and factors linked to migration—duration of stay in France, language skills, foreign qualifications, nationality—with additional controls for family, socioeconomic and contextual characteristics. We also investigate the returns to higher education among second-generation minority members compared to the majority population. We show large differences by country of origins, generation and gender. Across generations, most minority members have made clear progress in terms of access to employment and skilled jobs, but ethnic penalties remain for the descendants of North-Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Turkey. In contrast, Asian second-generation men and women encounter slight advantages in attaining highly-skilled positions. Controlling for tertiary degrees even increases the gap with majority members mostly in access to highly-skills jobs.

Employment and Education–Occupation Mismatches of Immigrants and their Children in the Netherlands: Comparisons with the Native Majority Group

This study examines the labor market integration of immigrants and their children in the Netherlands focusing on employment and over- and underqualification. Using data from the first wave of the Netherlands Longitudinal Life-Course Study (NELLS), the analysis shows disadvantages in employment probabilities for men and women from different foreign origin groups compared to the Dutch majority even after accounting for differences in human capital. Ethnic differences in employment probabilities are lower, but still visible, when comparing only respondents who obtained post-secondary education in the Netherlands. Further, first-generation immigrant men from Turkey and Morocco are at higher risk of being overeducated than Dutch majority men whereas this is not the case for second generation men and first- and secondgeneration minority women. Substantial ethnic difference in the likelihood of being undereducated are not prevalent. Having a foreign compared to a Dutch degree is related to lower labor market outcomes, but this negative relation is more pronounced for women than for men. Finally, there is some indication that overeducation is somewhat less common in the public sector than in the private sector, but minorities do not benefit more from this than the Dutch majority.

Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France by Jean Beaman

Reviewed by: Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France by Jean Beaman Samia I. Spencer Beaman, Jean. Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France. UP of California, 2017. ISBN 978-0-520-29426-4. Pp. 152. It is with much interest that readers may approach a sociological study that specifically focuses on children of Maghrebin immigrants who have achieved upward mobility vis-à-vis their parents, reaching the middle class—a welcome change from many concentrating on the delinquency and failures plaguing the lower classes. The fact that the scholar admits her early interest in the French language that she studied in secondary school, and "became very curious about visiting France and getting an opportunity to speak French with French people living in France" (ix) may even heighten their positive mindset. However, it will not take long to discover the built-in bias and self-fulfilling conclusions. A conversation with a respondent leads the author to state that this second generation suffers from "differential treatment and exclusion [...] based on racial and ethnic status [...] because they are nonwhite" (3). She intently seeks to prove the inefficacy of "France's Republican model, which purports to downplay distinctions based on identity among citizens" (4), siding with researchers who claim that cultural attachments associated with being North African are"oppositional to being French. There is only one way to be French" (24). Although many respondents, like Mohamed, believe that their dual Maghrebin and French identities and cultures "are more of a positive thing [...]. It has added to the richness of my life" (41), Beaman refutes findings of social scientists who establish that the success of this middle-class second generation is evidence that "race and ethnic origin are insignificant" (48). Sweeping generalizations are continually hammered to demonstrate that "white supremacy structures who is French" (18); that "though they have made it on a socioeconomic level, middle-class children of Maghrebin origin immigrants are not [End Page 244] accepted by others" (55); that "from an early age the North African second generation is denied cultural citizenship because they are of Maghrebin origin" (97); thus, they cannot escape marginalization "because they are non-white" (97). Learned readers will question the validity of assertions resulting from a "homogeneous" (107) sample of 45 respondents, 24 men and 21 women, half of whom are connected to each other as friends or acquaintances (107), during open-ended conversations—there is no mention of structure or questionnaire. Beaman's gratifying experiences in le Petit Nanterre, "an impoverished neighborhood" (107–08), may have colored her conclusions. If readers reach the Appendix (105–11), they will discover that Beaman's calls to more than a hundred organizations and associations, and on Internet forums and websites, were not very productive. In order to reach this small number of willing participants, she had to resort to "snowball sampling" (106), which consists of asking a respondent to recommend others. She attributes the refusal of the "many people [who] said no" (106) to "French Republican ideology [that] makes the discussion of race and ethnicity [...] sensitive or taboo" (106), without serious investigation of their reasons and/or the significance they assigned to her project. While the author believes that her findings "have implications for second-generation minority populations in other contexts" (107), many may not agree. Samia I. Spencer Auburn University (AL), emerita Copyright © 2018 American Association of Teachers of French

The Transition from School to Work for Children of Immigrants with Lower-Level Educational Credentials in the United States and France

This paper compares the transition from school to work among Mexican-origin youth in the United States and North African-origin youth in France relative to the native-majority youth with similar low-level credentials. The goal is to understand the extent to which these groups experience ethnic penalties in the labor market not explained by social class, low-level credentials, or other characteristics. The patterns of employment for second-generation minorities play out differently in the two contexts. In France, lack of access to jobs is a source of disadvantage for North African children of immigrants, while in the united States, second-generation Mexicans do not suffer from a lack of employment. Indeed, the Mexican second-generation shows a uniquely high level of employment. We argue that high levels of youth unemployment in the society, as is the case in France, means greater ethnic penalties for second-generation minorities.

Personality characteristics and workplace trust of majority and minority employees in the Netherlands

The workforce of the Netherlands and other countries is becoming increasingly culturally diverse. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research specifically investigating differences between majority and minority employees’ experiences at the workplace. Particularly comparisons between minority employees of different generations have hardly been reported in the literature. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated whether differences in workplace trust exist between majority employees and, first-, and second-generation minority employees. In addition, we studied the role of a number of relevant personality traits in relation to workplace trust, conceptualized as trust in colleagues, trust in the supervisor and trust in the organization. Findings show that differences in workplace trust exist and that personality traits are related differently to workplace trust across the three groups of employees. The findings are discussed and practical implications are proposed.

The democratic engagement of Britain's ethnic minorities

Democratic engagement is a multi-faceted phenomenon that embraces citizens' involvement with electoral politics, their participation in ‘conventional’ extra-parliamentary political activity, their satisfaction with democracy and trust in state institutions, and their rejection of the use of violence for political ends. Evidence from the 2010 BES and EMBES shows that there are important variations in patterns of democratic engagement across Britain's different ethnic-minority groups and across generations. Overall, ethnic-minority engagement is at a similar level to and moved by the same general factors that influence the political dispositions of whites. However, minority democratic engagement is also strongly affected by a set of distinctive ethnic-minority perceptions and experiences, associated particularly with discrimination and patterns of minority and majority cultural engagement. Second-generation minorities who grew up in Britain are less, rather than more, likely to be engaged.

Does social disadvantage over the life-course account for alcohol and tobacco use in Irish people? Birth cohort study

Aims: Few studies have examined how the settlement experiences of migrant parents might impact on the downstream adult health of second-generation minority ethnic children. We used prospective data to establish if childhood adversity relating to the settlement experiences of Irish-born parents might account for downstream adverse health-related behaviours in second-generation Irish respondents in adulthood. Design, setting and participants: Cohort data from the National Child Development Study, comprising 17 000 births from a single week in 1958, from Britain, were analysed. Respondents were followed to mid-life. Dependent variables were alcohol and tobacco use. The contribution of life-course experiences in accounting for health-related behaviours was examined. Findings: Relative to the rest of the cohort, the prevalence of harmful/hazardous alcohol use was elevated in early adulthood for second-generation men and women, although it reduced by age 42. Second-generation Irish men were more likely to report binge alcohol use (odds ratio 1.45; 95% confidence interval 0.99, 2.11; P = 0.05), and second-generation Irish women were more likely to smoke (odds ratio 1.67; 95% confidence interval 1.23, 2.23; P = 0.001), at mid-life. Childhood disadvantage partially mediated associations between second-generation Irish status and mid-life alcohol and tobacco use, although these were modest for associations with smoking in Irish women. Conclusions: The findings suggest mechanisms for the intergenerational ‘transmission’ of health disadvantage in migrant groups, across generations. More attention needs to focus on the public health legacy of inequalities transferring from one migrant generation to the next.

Ethnic concentration in the neighbourhood and majority and minority language: A study of first and second-generation immigrants

Ethnic residential concentration is often found to hamper immigrants’ majority language proficiency. However, there are still several gaps in our understanding of the relationship between ethnic concentration and ethnic minorities’ language practices. This study examines the extent to which ethnic concentration also constrains immigrants’ majority language use, whether contact with natives and co-ethnics mediates these relationships, and whether ethnic concentration relates to second-generation minorities’ minority language proficiency. Structural equation models on data for people of Turkish and Moroccan origin living in the Netherlands (N=2163) showed that ethnic concentration is indirectly related to weaker majority language proficiency and less majority language use through contact with natives and co-ethnics. For second-generation minorities, ethnic concentration is related to better minority language proficiency.

The Second Generation in Western Europe: Education, Unemployment, and Occupational Attainment

This paper reviews recent research in ten Western European countries on the educational and labor market outcomes of second-generation minorities. Minorities from less-developed origins appear to be particularly disadvantaged in education, access to the labor market, and occupational attainment. Disadvantages are most evident with test scores early in the school career, but in some countries minorities have higher continuation rates beyond the compulsory leaving age than do majority peers with similar test scores. Entry into the labor market is a particular problem for most minorities, with substantial ethnic penalties with respect to employment in all ten countries. There is a more mixed picture for occupational attainment: In some countries, we find cumulative disadvantages, whereas in others the barriers are greatest on entry into the labor market. We review possible explanations for the differences both between minorities and between countries.

New differences, old explanations

A B S T R AC T The aim of this article is to improve current understanding of the educational differences between minority groups in Norway who differ by country of origin. How much of these educational differences can be explained by the traditional explanation of social background? Further, is the effect of social background dependent on ethnic background? These questions are examined through analyses of register data containing information on all persons in Norway born between 1965 and 1981. Second-generation minority groups with Pakistani, Turkish and Indian background are compared with the majority. The conclusion is that social background explains some of the differences in educational outcomes, in particular the relatively low educational attainment of the groups of Turkish and Pakistani background. However, social background provides a less relevant explanation of the relatively high attainment of the group with Indian background and, compared to the majority, social background appears to be less important for educational choices among minority youth.

Applicant and Method Factors Relatedto Ethnic Score Differences in Personnel Selection: A Study at the Dutch Police

The aim of this study was to examine applicant and method factors related to ethnic score differences on a cognitive ability test, a personality test, an assessment center (AC), an employment interview, and a final employment recommendation in the context of police officer selection (N = 13,526). Score differences between the majority group and the first-generation minority groups were comparable to research findings from the literature. However, score differences between the majority group and second-generation minority groups were much smaller. On the cognitive ability test and the personality test most variability was explained by Dutch language-proficiency. Confirming assumed-characteristics theory, more variability on the interview and the employment recommendation was explained by Dutch language-proficiency and education than on the AC. Unsupportive of complexity–extremity theory, there seemed to be a general tendency to give lower scores to the ethnic minority group.

Satellite Television Viewing among Ethnic Minorities in France

Minority ethnic viewers originating in Islamic countries are more densely equipped with satellite television receivers than the majority population in France. Very little research has so far been conducted on the impact of satellite channels. This article is based on a qualitative survey conducted among 115 viewers in 30 minority ethnic households, mainly of Maghrebi origin. Respondents were asked what they had expected of satellite programmes, how their viewing habits had changed with the installation of satellite receivers and how this had affected personal and family attitudes. The findings reveal major differences between first- and second-generation minority ethnic viewers, as well as significant variations related to gender.