300448 Migrant Integration: Models and Practices (S) (WiSe 2011/2012)

A cursory glance at public and some academic debates at the integration of migrants suggest three assumptions which will be called into question in this seminar. First, some authors claim that the social integration of migrants is mostly a challenge to migrants themselves. Migrants have to show that they really want to blend in. This view is contradicted by multicultural views and what is nowadays called diversity management. The latter, for example, is mostly concerned with mainstream organizations adapting to cultural and social heterogeneities. Second, some debates make it sound as if social integration is a social problem affecting mostly labour migrants and refugees, while so-called highly skilled migrants are not an issue at all. There is even talk of so-called model minorities which integrate smoothly. A historical perspective, however, dating back to the Chicago School of Sociology, deals with integration as a sometimes long and crooked path. Third, not only policy discussions but virtually all integration research is concerned with adaptation of migrants in the immigration societies. Yet what about the often substantial numbers of return migrants in places of origin and onward migrants to third destinations?

This course looks at classic and contemporary research to shed light on these three questions. We discuss assimilation theories, old and new, concepts of multiculturalism and diversity, and transnational approaches, and look at the empirical results yielded by the various perspectives.

Requirements for participation, required level

Diese Lehrveranstaltung richtet sich an BA-Studierende.

Bibliography

Gunilla Fincke, 2008: Abgehängt, chancenlos, unwillig? - Eine empirische Reorientierung von Integrationstheorien zu MigrantInnen der zweiten Generation in Deutschland. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.