Ethnoracial patterns of schooling and work among adolescents: Implications for Mexican immigrant incorporation

This paper investigates Mexican immigrant incorporation by examining labor force participation and schooling among Mexican-origin adolescents in the United States. Theoretical perspectives on immigrant incorporation, labor migration-related cultural repertoires and adolescent development considered together imply that studying ethnoracial differences in schooling among adolescents without taking work into account can yield mis-leading pictures of Mexican-origin non-high school completion patterns, thus hampering the assessment of incorporation theories. To avoid this, we analyze Mexican-origin generational differences in the relationship between schooling and workforce participation among adolescents compared to non-Hispanic whites and blacks. Using micro-data from the 2000 US Census, we find that Mexican immigrant boys who are not enrolled in school are more likely to be in the workforce, and conversely that those who are enrolled in school are much less likely to be in the workforce, compared to whites and blacks. Such relative differences in school/work specialization, as predicted, diminish across Mexican-origin generations. Moreover, based on supplementary analyses, we find similar patterns for a cohort of young adults who failed to complete high school during the 1990s. Overall, the results are consistent with the idea that cultural orientations growing out of the nature and experience of Mexican labor migration are important for assessing school enrollment patterns among Mexican-origin youth and for gauging their implications for educational policy and immigrant-group incorporation.     

Migration and stratification

Migration and stratification are increasingly intertwined. One day soon it will be impossible to understand one without the other. Both focus on life chances. Stratification is about differential life chances - who gets what and why - and migration is about improving life chances - getting more of the good things of life. To examine the interconnections of migration and stratification, we address a mix of old and new questions, carrying out analyses newly enabled by a unique new data set on recent legal immigrants to the United States (the New Immigrant Survey). We look at immigrant processing and lost documents, depression due to the visa process, presentation of self, the race-ethnic composition of an immigrant cohort (made possible by the data for the first time since 1961), black immigration from Africa and the Americas, skin color diversity among couples formed by US citizen sponsors and immigrant spouses, and English fluency among children age 8-12 and their immigrant parents. We find, inter alia, that children of previously illegal parents are especially more likely to be fluent in English, that native-born US citizen women tend to marry darker, that immigrant applicants who go through the visa process while already in the United States are more likely to have their documents lost and to suffer visa depression, and that immigration, by introducing accomplished black immigrants from Africa (notably via the visa lottery), threatens to overturn racial and skin color associations with skill. Our analyses show the mutual embeddedness of migration and stratification in the unfolding of the immigrants’ and their children’s life chances and the impacts on the stratification structure of the United States.     

More than just shopping: Ethnic majority consumers and cosmopolitanism in immigrant grocery shops

This paper explores ethnic majority consumption practices in immigrant economies. Drawing on recent debates on cosmopolitanism, we focus on the question of how the use of immigrant shops by members of the ethnic majority is intertwined with the erosion and/or the (re)production of symbolic boundaries. We conducted 31 in-depth interviews and 15 go-alongs with consumers in immigrant grocery shops in Vienna. Our findings show how consumption is based upon and shaped by the various ways consumers attribute meaning to the shops, the products on offer as well as their shopping experiences. We identified five different types of consumption: consuming nostalgia, consuming patronage, consuming change, consuming alterity and consuming diversity. However, we only consider the latter two as cosmopolitan consumption in a narrower sense. We show that within these types, the expression of openness towards ‘the other’ constitutes a form of cultural capital displayed by members of the privileged classes. The article argues in favour of a more comprehensive understanding of consumption practices in immigrant economies. This encompasses that not every act of shopping in immigrant businesses is cosmopolitan and that research is called to consider that the various types of consumption effect boundaries along ethnicity and class in manifold ways.     

The persistence of skin color discrimination for immigrants

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination in employment on the basis of color is prohibited, and color is a protected basis independent from race. Using data from the spouses of the main respondents to the New Immigrant Survey 2003, this paper shows that immigrants with the lightest skin color earn on average 16-23% more than comparable immigrants with the darkest skin color. These estimates control for years of legal permanent residence in the US, education, English language proficiency, occupation in source country, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, race, country of birth, as well as for extensive current labor market characteristics that may be themselves influenced by discrimination. Furthermore, the skin color penalty does not diminish over time. These results are consistent with persistent skin color discrimination affecting legal immigrants to the United States.     

Religion as resource: Religion and immigrant economic incorporation

Much of the immigration literature in the United States points toward a positive association between religious activity and immigrant economic adaptation. Immigrant congregations serve as informal job fairs, build social capital for entrepreneurial activity, and provide a locale for leadership skill development. Using the New Immigrant Survey, this hypothesis of religion as economic resource is tested among immigrants receiving permanent residency within the United States in 2003. Somewhat surprisingly, most findings indicate a null relationship between religion and economic outcomes (i.e. employment, occupation status, and earnings). However, in instances where a significant relationship does exist, non-Protestant immigrants suffer the greatest economic penalty, particularly among non-Protestants who are not regularly participating in a religious organization. In contrast, non-Protestants who regularly participate have a higher likelihood of employment and higher earnings than their non-participating counterparts. Therefore, this paper extends previous literature in specifying that the religion as resource hypothesis operates best for non-Protestant immigrants who are actively involved in their religious organizations.     

新疆生产建设兵团新型军垦生育文化的文化成因探析

新疆生产建设兵团在五十多年的时间里,形成了具有明显兵团特色的新型军垦生育文化。文章拟从移民文化、党政军企合一的军垦文化、兵团特色的妇女文化等视角来揭示兵团新型军垦生育文化的成因,为构建社会主义新型生育文化提供一个可资借鉴的个案。     

出走与回归——广西民族影像中农民幸福感叙述变迁研究

“幸福感”是指人们根据内化了的社会标准对自己生活质量的整体性、肯定性进行评估，对生活的满意度及其各个方面进行全面评价之后产生的积极性情感占优势的一种心理状态。在本文中幸福感指农民对其生存环境、物质生活、民族文化以及梦想追求的一种主观感受。以《龙脊》《白裤子》《流浪诗人》和《文化守护者》等为例，本论文从影像题材、叙述视角、创作主体、人物形象等方面探讨影像中农民幸福感叙述变迁，认为农民追求幸福的方式由出走向回归转变，反映了基层农民的“中国梦”。     

The social context of assimilation: testing implications of segmented assimilation theory

Segmented assimilation theory has been a popular explanation for the diverse experiences of assimilation among new waves of immigrants and their children. While the theory has been interpreted in many different ways, we emphasize its implications for the important role of social context: both processes and consequences of assimilation should depend on the local social context in which immigrants are embedded. We derive empirically falsifiable hypotheses about the interaction effects between social context and assimilation on immigrant children’s well-being. We then test the hypotheses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Our empirical analyses yield two main findings. First, for immigrant adolescents living in non-poverty neighborhoods, we find assimilation to be positively associated with educational achievement and psychological well-being but also positively associated with at-risk behavior. Second, there is little empirical evidence supporting our hypotheses derived from segmented assimilation theory. We interpret these results to mean that future research would be more fruitful focusing on differential processes of assimilation rather than differential consequences of assimilation.     

Aggression and conduct disorder in former Soviet Union immigrant adolescents: The role of parenting style and ego identity

The study examined aggression, guilt feelings and conduct disorder (CD) in adolescent immigrants from the Former Soviet Union. One hundred and nineteen adolescents, including sixty six immigrants and fifty native Israelis from four residential schools, completed questionnaires assessing level of aggression, sense of guilt, ego identity, and parenting style. Objective assessments of CD were obtained from instructors at the residential schools, using the CBCL. Results indicate that diffused ego identity is the strongest predictor of aggression, guilt, and CD. A lack of positive parenting moderates the link between diffused ego identity and aggression and CD, while positive parenting promotes a sense of guilt, especially in the immigrant group. These results warrant cultural identity-sensitive interventions.     

灾害移民作为少数族群的社会互动性研究——基于新疆旱卡子滩闽玛生态村的实地调查

该文通过对新疆旱卡子滩闽玛生态村的一个汉族灾害移民群体的调查,探讨作为少数族群的汉族与当地哈萨克族在交往中存在的问题,认为通过文化符号的作用,加强不同群体之间在语言文化、民俗文化方面的相互了解和学习;同时当地政府也要扮演起文化促进者的角色,积极引导灾害移民适应当地的文化,进而在"求同存异"的状况下加强族群间的互动性,并最终探索出一条有利于族群交往的道路。