Comparing Immigrant Integration in Netherlands, France, and Germany, Guide, Progetti e Ricerche di Sociologia delle Migrazioni

Scarica Comparing Immigrant Integration in Netherlands, France, and Germany e più Guide, Progetti e Ricerche in PDF di Sociologia delle Migrazioni solo su Docsity! Analysis E. Ersanilli & R. Koopmans. Rewarding Integration? Citizenship Regulations and the Socio-Cultural Integration of Immigrants in the Netherlands, France and Germany. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 773-791. This paper compares the levels of socio-cultural integration of naturalized and non- naturalized immigrants in the Netherlands, France and Germany. These countries were selected because they have clearly different conceptions of citizenship and attendant nationality and naturalization policies. Socio-cultural integration is measured by host-country identification, proficiency and use of the host-country language, and interethnic social contacts. Ersanilli and Koopmans focus on immigrants from two rural regions in Turkey who migrated before 1975, in order to increase cross-national comparability. The authors test two hypotheses: the first, whether naturalized immigrants display higher levels of socio-cultural integration than non-naturalized immigrants, while the second, whether immigrants in countries with few preconditions for naturalization show higher levels of socio-cultural integration. The main problem is the lack of adequate comparative data (Favell 2003). The authors want to emphasize that their survey did not aim to be representative for the Turkish populations in Germany, France and the Netherlands, but to create a cross-nationally comparable sample, thus allowing a better test of causal hypotheses than would have been possible with representative samples. Data and methods The data used in this paper are based on a quasi-experimental design that focuses on one comparable and clearly circumscribed immigrant group in three destination countries - namely Turks originating from two rural regions in Turkey - who either themselves migrated before 1975 or are the foreign-born children of these first- generation guest workers. There are the discussion of data and the operationalisation of variables through the model of regression analyses with host-country identification, language use and proficiency, and social contacts with host-country ethnics as the dependent variables. To check the presence for possible bias in cross-sectional research, the authors employed two additional strategies in addition to phonebook sampling, namely by recruiting respondents during their summer holidays in the region of origin, and by asking respondents in one destination whether they could give us phone numbers of their parents or children, or of people from their region of origin in one of the other destination countries. Of course, these sampling methods may have their own bias. Data are collected between November 2005 and June 2006 by means of a standardized telephone survey in all three countries. The survey was conducted by bilingual interviewers and, depending on the preference of the respondent, could be completed in either Turkish or the language of the country of residence. All respondents qualified for citizenship based on the length-of-residence principles in their host country. Ersanilli and Koopmans examine the relation between the possession of citizenship of the host country and proficiency and frequency in the usage of the host-country language. This relation was measured by asking respondents which language they spoke the most frequently in three different contexts, namely with their friends, partner and children: Turkish, French/Dutch/German, or both about equally often. The answers were converted to scores of 0 (mostly Turkish), 0.5 (equally often Turkish and French/Dutch/German) and 1 (mostly French/Dutch/German). A scale was constructed based on the means of the three items (Cronbach’s alpha .66). To measure host-country language proficiency, respondents were asked how often they experienced problems in understanding. Responses were measured on a 5-point scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘always’. This scale was inverted so that a higher score means fewer problems and therefore a greater proficiency. Since the loyalty has always been an important part of citizenship, the United States demanded an oath of allegiance of its new citizens. Loyalty is operationalised as identification with host-country nationals (Germans, French, Dutch) and measured with three questions: To what extent do you feel connected to [group]?; To what extent do you feel [group member]?; To what extent are you proud of being [group member]? Cronbach’s alpha for identification with the host country is 0.78. As a final indicator of socio-cultural integration into the host society, we look at social contacts. Respondents were asked about the ethnic composition of the social group they went out with. The scores are 1 (predominantly Turkish), 2 (equally often Turkish and French/Dutch/German)4 and 3 (predominantly Dutch/German/French). The difference between naturalized and non-naturalized Turkish immigrants in each of the three countries is modelled by creating six dummy variables; naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants in each of the three countries. Non-naturalized immigrants in Germany serve as the reference category since our hypotheses predict they will have the lowest level of socio-cultural integration. In this way, the authors can investigate simultaneously the difference between naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants within a country, and the differences between countries. In addition to the regressions with non-naturalized German Turks as the reference category, they also ran regressions with the other five categories as reference groups in order to be able to test the significance of the difference between each pair wise contrast, between naturalized and non-naturalized immigrants in France, or between naturalized immigrants in the Netherlands and Germany. In addition, they controlled in the analyses for individual-level demographic factors that are known to influence socio-cultural integration and naturalization (gender, generation, level of education, employment and marital status). Generation is added as a dummy that distinguishes between immigrants who migrated as adults (the first generation) and those who migrated as minors (the in- between or 1.5 generation). Three additional demographic characteristics were