Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration 1
Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration 1
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DOI：
10.1177/019791839703100403
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发表时间：
1997-12
影响因子：
3.8
通讯作者：
R. Alba;V. Nee
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Alba;V. Nee
同化理论几十年来一直受到激烈的批评。然而，没有任何其他框架为社会科学界提供了如此深厚的关于移民及其后代融合的累积发现。我们认为同化理论对于研究当代美国移民并没有失去它的效用。在我们的案例中，我们批判性地回顾了米尔顿·戈登和其他人提供的关于同化的规范描述；我们参考Shibutani和Kwan的族群分层理论，提出重新建构同化理论的一些方向。我们还研究了一些经常用来区分早期欧洲大规模移民和当代移民的论点，发现它们是不确定的。最后，我们筛选了一些关于新近移民群体的社会经济和居住同化的证据。虽然记录显然是混杂的，但我们发现的证据与同化正在发生的观点是一致的，尽管不均匀。
Assimilation theory has been subject to intensive critique for decades. Yet no other framework has provided the social science community with as deep a corpus of cumulative findings concerning the incorporation of immigrants and their descendants. We argue that assimilation theory has not lost its utility for the study of contemporary immigration to the United States. In making our case, we review critically the canonical account of assimilation provided by Milton Gordon and others; we refer to Shibutani and Kwan's theory of ethnic stratification to suggest some directions to take in reformulating assimilation theory. We also examine some of the arguments frequently made to distinguish between the earlier mass immigration of Europeans and the immigration of the contemporary era and find them to be inconclusive. Finally, we sift through some of the evidence about the socioeconomic and residential assimilation of recent immigrant groups. Though the record is clearly mixed, we find evidence consistent with the view that assimilation is taking place, albeit unevenly.