News

Growing Up in Diverse Societies: The Integration of the Children of Immigrants in England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden  - co-edited by Official Fellow Jan O Jonsson and Emeritus Fellow Anthony Heath with Frank Kalter and Frank van Tubergen - was published globally last week by Oxford University Press.

The book uses data from England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden – based on the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU) – and compares the life situation, social relationships and attitudes of adolescents in ethnic minority groups with majority youth. Several dimensions of integration are studied, such as structual, social, and cultural integration, with some of the results challenging established thinking on these issues.

The original European release was celebrated at a launch in mid-October at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (De-ZIM) in Berlin. The book was presented by Frank Kalter and Jan O Jonsson, and introductory comments were made by Michaela Kreyenfeld from the Hertie School of Governance.

Later discussion covered a range of topics around the book's central findings, for example, the surprising similarity in immigrant integration across the destination countries, the reasons why cultural integration is remote for some groups, and the possibility of policy changes in order to speed up integration. This discussion was moderated by Naika Foroutan, co-Director of De-ZIM and Professor of Integration Research at Humboldt University, Berlin, and the panel included journalist Ebru Taşdemir.

Below: The panel at the launch of Growing Up in Diverse Societies at De-ZIM. (Photograph by Konstantin Fastmann / De-ZIM.)