Intercultural Contact and Intergenerational Transmission in Immigrant Families

Abstract

Although intergenerational transmission is one of the major mechanisms of cultural continuity, it has hardly been studied in migration research, where cohort analyses of differences in the assimilation of different immigrant generations prevail; moreover, it has never had a systematic place in theoretical models about the incorporation of immigrants in the receiving society. The following empirical analyses examine the role of intergenerational transmission processes in the social incorporation of second generation adolescents. The extent of intergenerational transmission is seen in this context as a major mechanism by which the adolescents' intra-and interethnic social contacts are shaped and their social identification is structured.To integrate these family-related aspects of the social incorporation of immigrants, classical theoretical models of assimilation processes have to be extended and modified. As a starting point for an adequate modeling of intergenerational transmission processes, a classical action-theoretical model by Esser (1980) has been chosen. This theoretical model includes both contextual and individual mechanisms that affect the assimilation process: opportunity structures, action barriers, and action alternatives are related to the perceptions, cognitions, and evaluations of the individual actor in a simple two-level (context and individual) process model of cognitive, structural, social, and identification assimilation. According to this model, personal preconditions of the assimilation process are partly "imported" motivational and cognitive attributes that are confronted with the opportunities provided by the respective context in the receiving society and that "match" a specific social and structural placement as the starting point of an assimilation career. Discrimination is seen in this 159 AUTHOR'S NOTE: The comparative empirical analysis is based on data that have been collected in three research projects directed by the author: (a) "Intergenerational Relationships in Turkish Immigrant Families" as part of the special program "Consequences of

Contextual Conditions for Acculturation and Adjustment of Adolescent Immigrants – Integrating Theory and Findings

“…Parents' acculturation expectations and ethnic identity, in particular, have been found to be closely linked with their children's acculturation orientations and ethnic identity in a variety of settings, age, and ethnic groups (Dimitrova, Ferrer-Wreder, & Trost, 2015;Nauck, 2001a;Sabatier, 2008;Schachner et al, 2014a). Further, a higher parental mainstream orientation predicted better language and cultural skills amongst Turkish immigrant children (Becker, Klein, & Biedinger, 2013) and better psychological and sociocultural (school) adjustment amongst early adolescent immigrants (Schachner et al, 2014a) in Germany.…”

“…Mainstream and ethnic language use in the family of origin are often inversely related. A higher retention of the ethnic language is therefore associated with lower levels of national language acquisition (Nauck, 2001a) and overall academic achievement amongst immigrant children and adolescents (OECD, 2010(OECD, , 2012. However, the negative effects of ethnic language retention in the family on mainstream language and achievement can be reduced by pre-school education in the mainstream language (Magnuson, Lahaie, & Waldfogel, 2006).…”

Partnership formation and dissolution among immigrants in the Spanish context

“…Adaptation is likely to have a stronger impact on them, since descendants of immigrants have spent at least part of their childhood in the country of destination, whereas the time available for finding a partner (and adapting to the dominant marriage market behavior in the destination country) is clearly shorter for immigrants who arrived as adults. Obviously, socialization into the values and partnership patterns of the origin society will still play a role for descendants through the intergenerational transmission of family values, which is known to remain particularly strong in larger immigrant communities (De Valk and Liefbroer 2007;Nauck 2001Nauck , 2007Phalet and Schönpflug 2001;Schönpflug 2001). By contrast, selection and especially the disruptive effects of migration play no part in explaining differences in partnership patterns between the descendants of immigrants and comparable natives.…”

Ideal ages for family formation among immigrants in Europe

“…Immigrants are unique from majority (non-immigrant-background) populations in that they occupy a sociocultural middle ground between their countries of origin and residence, with family-life ideals potentially shaped by influences on both sides De Valk & Milewski, 2011;Foner, 1997;Glick, 2010;Nauck, 2001). The distinction between the influences of countries of origin and residence is often made when theorizing about the position of immigrants in their new home country and has been previously used to study structural integration (Van Tubergen, 2005.…”