Comparing Immigrant Integration in North America and Western Europe: How much do the Grand Narratives Tell Us?

Abstract

In comparing different countries, studies often seek to account for the success of immigrant integration, or lack of it, in a small number of “grand ideas,” such as nationally specific “models” of integration, which attempt to provide overarching explanations for cross‐national differences and similarities. This article evaluates five grand ideas in light of our study examining how four European (Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands) and two North American (U.S., Canada) countries are meeting the challenges of integrating immigrants and their second‐generation children across a variety of domains from the labor market, to the educational system, to the polity. We conclude that while some of the grand ideas help to illuminate patterns of integration in particular domains, none provides a sufficiently encompassing explanation – and each has significant failings. Moreover, none of these ideas highlights all of the features that we argue are critical, although these do not boil down to one “grand narrative.” These features are the characteristics or qualities that immigrants bring with them when they move to Europe or North America; demographic and other social and economic trends there; and, perhaps most important, historically rooted social, political, and economic institutions in each receiving society that create barriers as well as bridges to integration and inclusion.

“Utter Failure” or Unity out of Diversity? Debating and Evaluating Policies of Multiculturalism

“…In a meta‐analysis of 51 studies, Nguyen and Benet‐Martínez () find that biculturalism is positively correlated with a range of behavioral outcomes, such as academic achievement, career success, and reduced delinquency. Recent efforts to collect and standardize socioeconomic indicators of first‐ and second‐generation integration across multiple Western democracies show higher foreign‐ and native‐born unemployment gaps, in relative and absolute terms, and larger income gaps in countries with fewer pluralism policies, such as France and Germany, as compared to the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, or Canada (Alba and Foner, ), while educational attainment, income security, occupational prestige, and residential diversity for the second generation appear higher in “inclusionary” cities – Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Stockholm – than in less inclusionary ones in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland (Bean et al ., ).…”

How Can Social Media Be Helpful for Immigrants to Integrate Society in the US

“…Alba & Foner (2014) further note that its continued significance will be as a result of the problems often experienced with the changes in demographics that are occurring on every side of the Atlantic. In fact, there is a great potential that every rich country will undergo a situation referred to as "transition to diversity."…”

“…In fact, there is a great potential that every rich country will undergo a situation referred to as "transition to diversity." (Alba & Foner, 2014). Such a transition necessitates that an efficient integration process takes place from all spheres including the social media.…”

“When I Am a President of Guinea”: Resettled Refugees Traversing Education in Search of a Future

“…False hope ignores the "organized abandonment" (Gilmore, 2011) by the nation-state of marginalized individuals and communities, including refugees and other migrants. It is not unique to the United States, with parallels in Europe (Alba & Foner, 2014;Auernheimer, 2005;Kowalczyk, 2010 composed of resources and networks that support and nurture students, inspire in them courage to pursue painful paths, and solidarity to transform systems and structures (2009). Can this kind of praxis of transforming the world through action and reflection (Freire, 1994) prepare students for post-graduation experiences?…”