Patterns of Participation in Informal Social Activities among Chinese Immigrants in Toronto1

This study addresses two questions. First, among the three major perspectives on integration (i.e., zero‐sum, pluralist, and selective integration) suggested in the literature, which is the dominant pattern of the participation level in informal social activities in the ethnic community and in the wider society among new immigrant groups? Second, how well do the factors suggested by these three perspectives explain these patterns? Based on recently collected data about Chinese immigrants in Toronto, Canada, the analyses suggest that nearly half the respondents claim a low level of social participation. Among those who do participate, the pluralist integration pattern is the dominant pattern of participation in informal social activities among today's Chinese immigrants. Though the analysis shows the consistent effect of human capital resources on the pluralist integration patterns, there is no significant effect of either human capital resources or duration in the country on the zero‐sum and selective patterns. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Participation in ethnic associations: the case of immigrants in West Germany

This paper gives the results of a 1981-1982 study of Greek, Italian, and Turkish immigrants in West Germany. Ethnic organizations such as those that presently exist in large numbers in West Germany are often viewed as indicating a lack of social integration and participation by immigrants in the host society. Whether these organizations segregate the immigrants and make their assimilation more difficult, as research on minority groups often claims, or whether they serve as mediating institutions to help integrate and assimilate the newcomers, as other theories would lead one to expect, will depend on the basic orientation of the ethnic organization itself toward the host country. Results indicate the distinctive characteristics of the organizations serving each of these 3 different groups, the extent to which persons of each nationality participate in these associations, the reasons they give for their participation, and the ways in which participation in organizations with different organizations affects the social integration and assimilation of the individual immigrants. Efforts to increase and support the political activities of minority groups at the local level will have positive consequences; this would be 1 modest but decisive step toward eliminating the mutual prejudices of minority and majority group members. As long as immigrants have a clear right to remain in their host country, a secure means of existence, and recognition and acceptance as members of an ethnic minority, their heritage and pride should not be seen as an indication of any lack of identification with the dominant society.     

Conceptions of Immigrant Integration and Racism Among Social Workers in Sweden

Drawing on 22 qualitative interviews with social workers in Sweden, this article analyzes how social workers conceive immigrant integration and racism and tackle racism within their institutions and the wider Swedish society. The majority of the white social workers framed integration in relation to cultural differences and denied or minimized the role of racism in structuring their services and the ethnic relations in Sweden. In contrast, social workers with immigrant backgrounds were less compromising in discussing racism and assumed it as a problem both for themselves as institutional actors and as immigrants in everyday life and institutional settings. Social institutions in Sweden have been important actors in endorsing equality and accommodating differences. However, it is of paramount importance for social justice-minded social workers to identify and unsettle those structures and discourses that enable racist and discriminatory policies and practices against those groups who are not viewed as “core” members of the Swedish society. The absence of anti-racist social work within Swedish social work is primarily related to the idea of color-blind welfare universalism that is assumed to transcend the particularity of the needs, experiences, and perspectives of different groups in Sweden. While integration is envisioned and framed as a political project of inclusion of non-white immigrants, it tends to become a political device through which hierarchies of belonging are constructed. Following such conception of integration, cultural/religious differences and equality are framed as conflicting where cultural conformity underpinned by assimilationist discourses becomes a requirement for political, social, and economic equality.     

Between Spatial and Social Segregation among Immigrants: The Case of Immigrants from the FSU in Israel

Studies on immigrants' residential concentration have reported mixed findings. Some have argued that immigrants' residential concentration is a necessary step in the process of their social integration because there the newcomers find housing and employment opportunities as well as social support. As they learn the language and improve their socioeconomic status, they move to neighborhoods where they share space with the native population. Others have argued that the ethnic neighborhood delays the process of social integration in the new society because it nurtures informal ethnic social networks that provide incomplete information and retard the process of language acquisition. The study reported here investigated the effect of motivations, perceptions of attitudes of the host society, acculturation and socioeconomic factors on immigrants' residential concentration. It also sought to expand previous research by examining the relationship between immigrants'residential concentration and social relationships with nonimmigrants. Data for the study were collected in 1999 through a survey of immigrants from the FSU who had settled in one northern city in Israel after 1989. The results show a negative relationship of socioeconomic status and fluency in Hebrew with the percentage of immigrants residing in a given neighborhood. The higher the socioeconomic status and the more fluent the immigrant in Hebrew, the lower the percentage of immigrants in his or her neighborhood. Immigrants who expressed a proactive motivation for migration resided in neighborhoods with a low percentage of immigrants. Immigrants' residential concentration was not found to be related to the development of social relationships with the local population. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

What Influences Philanthropic Participation by Chinese Internal Immigrants: Research Based on the Perspective of Integration

Philanthropic participation is a stepping stone to integration for immigrants. However, the philanthropic participation behavior of Chinese internal immigrants, the largest immigrant group in the world, is not well understood. Data from the Special Survey on Social Integration and Mental Health of the Chinese Immigrant Population are employed to examine philanthropic participation among Chinese internal immigrants based on the perspective of integration. The study demonstrates that Chinese internal immigrants are less likely to engage in philanthropic activities than non-immigrants in China. The regression results suggest that, with the exception of social security, integration factors at the economic level are not important drivers to participate in philanthropic activities, while integration factors at the social, psychological and cultural levels, including social networks, social identity and acculturation, are positively related to philanthropic participation. In addition, social integration circumstances, including perceived inclusion and community services, are significant drivers of immigrants’ philanthropic participation. These findings improve our understanding of the philanthropic behaviors of Chinese internal immigrants and have important policy implications for government and NPO to promote immigrants’ philanthropic engagement.

     

Identity Patterns among Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel: Assimilation vs. Ethnic Formation

This paper deals with identity patterns among the 1990s immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel. It presents the complex set of identity types among immigrants in the context of their cultural and socio-demographic characteristics and their dynamic relationships with the Israeli host society.
The findings show that immigrants from the FSU in Israel form a distinct ethnic group within the Israeli social and cultural fabric. This is reflected in their closed social networks, ethnic information sources, strong desire to maintain ethnic-cultural continuity, and the fact that the ethnic component (Jew from the FSU or immigrant from the FSU) is central for self-identification. However, ethnic formation among these immigrants is not a reactive-oriented identity, which is mainly generated by alienation from the host society, it is rather an instrumentalized ethnicity, which is the outcome of ethnic-cultural pride and pragmatic considerations.     

What is ethnic in an ethnic economy?

This article examines critically the relationship between ethnicity and entrepreneurship in the sociology of immigrant economies. It argues that what is ethnic in an ethnic economy has often been confusingly conceptualised and that several factors now call for re-assessing the ethnic nature of immigrants' business activities. On the basis of a review of recent research, three such factors are outlined: the porosity of ethnic boundaries to cross-group business interactions; the diversity within immigrant economies in terms of status, gender, class and generation; and the political and institutional context in which immigrant economies take place. The conclusion stresses the need for multiple explanations of how and why immigrants become entrepreneurs, which take into account not only the meso-level constituted by ethnicity and social capital, but also micro-individual factors and macro-institutional settings.     

Class, Culture, and Participation in the Collegiate Extra-Curriculum

With larger percentages of high school students entering higher education, it becomes increasingly important to look at how processes occurring on college campuses contribute to social stratification. Using in‐depth interviews with 61 students, I ask: How does social class structure students’ participation in the collegiate extra‐curriculum? I argue that the collegiate extra‐curriculum is an important site for stratification because it is there that students gain access to social and cultural resources valued by the privileged classes. I find that upper‐middle‐class students arrive on campus with cultural resources that motivate their participation and social resources that facilitate their involvement. Among working‐class students, limited financial factors constrain their involvement, while social and cultural resources further curtail their interest in such activities. These findings contribute to theories of social and cultural reproduction by showing that those who have more valued social and cultural resources at the outset are in a better position to gain additional such resources throughout their college careers. Moreover, these analyses show that symbolic and cultural hierarchies are sustained by the interdependent relationship between social and cultural capital.     

Social mobility and the well‐being of individuals

Several papers published in recent years have revived interest in Sorokin's dissociative thesis: the view that intergenerational social mobility has detrimental effects on the social relationships and wellbeing of individuals. In this paper, I test the dissociative thesis using data from the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society. On a wide range of indicators that measure participation in civic associations, contact with parents, close personal relationships, social support, subjective wellbeing, etc. individuals who have achieved long‐range upward mobility (i.e. those who move from working class origin to salariat destination) tend to fare better than those who are immobile in the working class. Those who have experienced long‐range downward mobility (moving from salariat origin to working class destination) do about as well as second‐generation members of the working class. Overall, there is no support for Sorokin's thesis.     

Generation Status,Social Capital,and the Routes Out of High School

This study investigates immigrant-native differences in the activities of adolescents 2 years after their sophomore year of high school. We employ longitudinal data for the modeling of duration, nativity and generation differences in education and employment activities during late adolescence. We ask if the same human and social capital characteristics employed as explanations for nativity differences in achievement are predictive of high school participation versus other activities such as labor force participation within a cohort of adolescents. Despite their lower levels of human capital and lower previous academic performance, recent immigrants who arrive in the United States as adolescents are more likely than those who arrive earlier or those born in the United States to persevere in high school. Access to familial social capital and attitudinal measures help explain some of this effect. As for those who do leave school early, socioeconomic status and language background play a role in the activities respondents pursue. While recent immigrants are more likely to persevere in high school, once they leave they are no more likely to pursue additional education than their U.S. born counterparts.     

Strong Ties,Weak Ties,and Human Capital: Latino Immigrant Employment Outside the Enclave*

Abstract This study focuses on the role of social ties and human capital in the integration of Latino immigrants into the local economy. This analysis extends earlier research by focusing on more rural contexts with limited labor‐market opportunities and less access to social resources provided by coethnics. We reconsider conclusions of previous studies by focusing on areas with limited labor‐market opportunities and less access to resources provided by coethnics. Using data from in‐depth interviews, focus‐group discussions, and surveys of former farmworkers in five rural communities in New York, we consider how individuals move from agricultural to other types of employment. Multinomial logit and ordinary least squares regression analyses confirm indications from our qualitative data that strong social ties, weak ties, and human capital all play distinctive parts in the economic integration of immigrants outside the ethnic enclave. These resources have the most positive impact on incomes when they contribute to the immigrants' self‐reliance in finding employment. This finding is consistent with observations from the social‐network literature that those who are less reliant on strong social ties are better able to take advantage of a broader range of labor‐market opportunities.     

Social Capital Investment and Immigrant Economic Trajectories: A Case Study of Punjabi American Taxi Drivers in New York City

Although the scholarship on social capital and immigrant economic incorporation has sufficiently documented how immigrants mobilize social capital in their search for employment which often leads to the formation of immigrant niches, how social capital is processed after immigrants acquire employment and its significance for the preservation of immigrant employment niches is less well explored. This paper addresses this gap in the literature with a case study of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers in the New York metropolitan area. In particular, this study shows how a group of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers mobilized social capital via embeddedness in co‐ethnic social networks and improved their working conditions – a process that must be considered in explanations of the Punjabi niche in the taxi industry for more than two decades. The study has implications for the relationship between social capital and the structure of the workplace or industry where immigrants are incorporated and its subsequent impact on immigrant economic trajectories. Further, this study contributes to the debate on the usefulness of ethnic communities for the adaptation of immigrant groups. Additionally, this research is relevant to the scholarship on the economic adaptation of South Asian (a subset of Asian Americans) immigrants, an understudied immigrant group in the United States.     

Social and human capital in immigrant adaptation:: The case of Canadian business immigrants

Purpose: With the resurgence of immigration to North America in the past three decades, research on immigrant adaptation and the attendant issues of assimilation has burgeoned. A prevailing assumption of much of this research is that social capital is a vital resource enabling immigrants to find their economic and social niches in the host society. In a word, social capital is a key factor in the immigrant adaptation process. This assumption has been especially prominent in research focusing on one specific subset of immigrants: entrepreneurs. Social capital in the form of ethnic networks and family ties is assumed to function critically in the establishment and operation of immigrant-owned businesses. This paper argues that although the formation and expenditure of social capital may typify the experiences of many or even most immigrant entrepreneurs, some enter the host society with sufficient human and/or financial capital that enables them to forego the utilization of social capital in the adaptation process.Methods: To demonstrate, I draw upon in-depth interviews conducted with 70 immigrant entrepreneurs in the province of Ontario, Canada between 1993 and 1995. All interviewees entered Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Business Immigration Program, a federal program designed to attract immigrants with demonstrable business and managerial skills that presumably will lead to the establishment of a firm and thus to the subsequent creation of jobs and economic activity. A formal requirement of their entrance, then, is the possession of proven business skills, a critical form of human capital that facilitates successful economic adaptation in the host society.Forms of social capital are described and their applicability to the adaptation experiences of the interviewees is analyzed. What is found among these business immigrants is a minimal reliance on social capital in establishing and operating their firms. In securing investment capital, finding a work force, and acquiring information, ethnic and family ties, the most common forms of social capital for immigrants generally and for immigrant entrepreneurs in particular, do not play a major role. Solidarity with co-ethnics and the use of family labor, so common among conventional immigrant entrepreneurs, are not of significant import in the economic adaptation of these business immigrants. Moreover, ties to coethnics are only minimally significant in patterns of social adaptation as well.Results: It is concluded that immigrants entering the host society with pre-migration intentions of business ownership possess sufficient human capital that enables them to disregard the formation and utilization of social capital in their economic and social adaptation. In this they differ from immigrants who take a more conventional path to business ownership, that is, laboring in the mainstream work force following entrance into the host society and gradually accumulating resources that lead to entrepreneurship.For business immigrants with children, however, social capital does play a key role in the decision to immigrate. Business immigrants are prepared to abandon successful firms in the origin society in order to provide their children with a more promising socioeconomic environment, including above all what is viewed as superior opportunities for education. Hence, the social capital that inheres in close-knit family arrangements provides incentive for parents to accept losses in financial capital in order to increase their children’s human capital.Conclusion: The context of the receiving society may also be seen as a form of social capital for Canadian business immigrants. All declare that quality of life, rather than the lure of financial success, serves as their major incentive to immigrate to Canada. Moreover, the fact that they enter a society that officially proclaims its multicultural character offers them the opportunity to become Canadian but to retain their ethnicity. The source of social capital in this case, then, is not the ethnic community, but the broader society.     

Rethinking the Hispanic Paradox: The Mortality Experience of Mexican Immigrants in Traditional Gateways and New Destinations

Previous research suggests that favorable health outcomes among Mexican immigrants reflect high levels of social support in enclave communities with high co‐ethnic density. This study examines the mortality outcomes of Mexican immigrants in the United States in traditional gateways versus new and minor destinations. Mexican immigrants in new and minor destinations have a significant survival advantage over those in traditional gateways, reflecting less established communities in new destinations. This finding casts doubt on the protective effects of enclaves, since non‐traditional destinations have less established immigrant communities. Future research should reevaluate the relationship between community ethnic composition, social support, and immigrant health.     

In and Out of the Ethnic Economy: A Longitudinal Analysis of Ethnic Networks and Pathways to Economic Success across Immigrant Categories1

The economic benefits to immigrants of taking jobs in ethnic workplaces, relative to the open economy, are heavily debated. We examine longitudinally differences across immigrant categories in how the choice of ethnic or non‐ethnic workplace influences the ethnic composition of social networks and how these factors impact immigrants’ economic success. Using the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, with data 6 months, 2 years, and 4 years after arrival, we find support for both sides of the ethnic economy debate when it is qualified by immigrant category. While economic immigrants benefit from non‐ethnic workplaces, family immigrants face economic penalties in the open economy and do better in ethnic workplaces. We argue that policies sorting immigrants into visa categories do much of the work of leading them into segmented paths of incorporation.     

Social Protest and Self-Enhancement: A Conditional Relationship

Data from a panel study are used to test the theoretically informed hypothesis that participation in social protest activities in the seventh grade has self-enhancing outcomes in the ninth grade and in young adulthood where the subjects in the seventh grade express alienation from the conventional social order. However, participation in social protest activities in the seventh grade is expected to have self-devaluing consequences in the ninth grade and young adulthood where the subjects in the seventh grade do not express alienation from the conventional social order. The results of OLS multiple regression analyses with interaction terms were consistent with the hypothesis. As predicted, among subjects who rejected the idea that one can get ahead by working hard, seventh grade social protest was inversely related to self-derogation; and, among subjects who affirm the idea that one can get ahead by working hard, social protest activities were related to higher subsequent levels of self-derogation.     

Understanding the role of ethnic online communities during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of Korean immigrant women's information-seeking behaviors

The rule of social distancing, coupled with the closing down of ethnic enclaves, has led immigrants to become isolated from their ethnic groups. In this study, we investigate the increasing role of ethnic online communities in immigrants’ information-seeking behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of 726 posts in MissyUSA reveals how an ethnic online community helps Korean immigrant women deal with the pandemic, reflecting the essence of a community amid societal lockdown. The findings suggest that these online communities supplement immigrant women's medical knowledge, build non-medical knowledge helpful to disadvantaged immigrants, and offer transnational knowledge regarding medical systems, products, and travel. These results provide evidence of how ethnic online communities promote immigrants’ ongoing incorporation into society through the development of domestically and transnationally engaged medical and non-medical knowledge.     

Stages and modes of incorporation of exiles in Switzerland: The example of Chilean refugees

Many scholars perceive the incorporation of refugees and immigrants to a new society as a matter of time: the longer the length of residence, the more the refugees and immigrants perceive their stay in the host society as permanent. Other social scientists go even much further: they perceive adaptation not only as a linear process but also as an inevitable and desirable process which should lead to the disappearance of immigrants as an ethnic community and to their assimilation to a new society. In this paper we argue that incorporation to a new society is not necessarily a linear process depending exclusively upon length of residence. We also argue that assimilation is not necessarily the end result of this process. In our opinion, linear and assimilationist approaches neglect macro‐social context and, to a lesser extent, social stratification which are important variables influencing the incorporation process of migrants to a new society. The empirical study of Chilean refugees in Switzerland shows the relevance of these factors and also of the actor's own perception of the situation in the definition of different stages of exile.     

Involving People with Disabilities in Volunteer Roles

Abstract

According to the 2002 National Health Interview Survey, 33.7 million non-institutionalized Americans have limitations in usual activities. A recent poll on community participation found that, overall, people with disabilities have lower rates of community participation compared to those without disabilities. An analysis of that same poll concluded that people with disabilities continue to be treated as second class citizens by being excluded from the mainstream of everyday life. Social role valorization theory proposes creating and supporting socially valued roles for people who are kept at a social distance. It is through these valued social roles that they gain equal access to other opportunities that society has to offer. One such socially valued role is that of a community volunteer. Volunteer activities can foster a social environment where people with disabilities are seen as credible coping individuals. This paper reports the results of a survey of twenty-six community agencies which regularly use volunteers. The purpose of the survey was to identify barriers to volunteer opportunities for people with disabilities and to explore openness to methods to remove the barriers through community collaborations.