Beyond literacy and language provision: Socio-political participation of migrants and large language minorities in five countries from PIAAC R1/R2

Abstract

Integration is more than work and school: It consists of socio-political participation as well. Even without citizen’s rights, migrants have an opinion on whether they ‘have a say’ in the host or dominant society. This expression – having a say – is emblematic, because it is a well-known survey question, also used in the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). For this article, the authors choose Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel and the USA to analyse variables on political efficacy and volunteering as indicators for socio-political participation. Using post-colonial and multiple literacy approaches, the authors examine whether migrants and language minorities feel heard. Findings show that first-generation migrants in four countries feel low political efficacy and are excluded from volunteering. However, when taking literacy proficiency into consideration, many effects for political efficacy disappear. For large language minorities, however, controlling for literacy has no effect on their socio-political exclusion.

Explaining the gap: Why do Swedish‐speaking minority youth have higher political self‐efficacy than Finnish‐speaking majority youth?

“…As to language minorities, research is scarce. According to a study from five different OECD countries (the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Israel), language minorities have lower political efficacy than majorities, and, unlike for the difference between immigrants and the majority, literacy skills do not explain the difference (Grotlüschen et al, 2021). Moreover, language and ethnolinguistic identity need to be considered when studying language minorities.…”

Don’t they want to, or can’t they? Political Participation and Engagement by Turkish postmigrant Youth in Germany

“…The only noteworthy difference is that peer and parental norms are more critical for postmigrant youth in determining the degree of political engagement (Jugert et al, 2013), which can be seen as a manifestation of their families' social capital. Overall, social capital with different conceptualizations such as ethnic-civic community, social network, recruitment, and volunteering (de Rooij, 2012; Jacobs & Tillie, 2004) seems to be the driving force for postmigrants' political participation even today (see Giugni & Grasso, 2020;Grotlüschen et al, 2021).…”

Predictors of literacy in adulthood: Evidence from 33 countries

“…We also note as a limitation that immigrant groups were excluded from the current crossnational study, because of the well-known rampant variability in the number and social, educational, and demographic characteristics of respective populations in different countries (e.g., immigrants only account for 0.02% of the Japanese PIAAC sample, while immigrants and individuals with home language other than one of official languages constitute 29% of the Canadian sample) [93][94][95][96]. We believe that a cross-national comparison of literacy skills among immigrants is an important topic to pursue in future research.…”