Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: What Drives Civic Integration? Analyzing Immigrant Identity and Participation in Denmark and Sweden

政治学博士论文研究：什么推动公民融合？

• 批准号: 1065792
• 负责人: Jack Snyder
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: Columbia University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-05-01 至 2013-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1065792&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Immigrants from Muslim-majority countries and their descendants have constituted growing minorities throughout western Europe for the past half-century and have been the focus of intense debate over social problems, cultural difference and security threats. Governments have employed varying measures to integrate immigrants, often focusing on economic benchmarks, but integration policy-makers and practitioners increasingly believe that deeper civic engagement is an essential factor for long-term societal stability. What drives civic identity and participation among young immigrant minorities? While much scholarship exists on participation or identity in single settings, we have little concrete, comparative knowledge to guide policy, practice and social science on identity formation and political inclusion in diverse societies.This project examines civic integration through primary survey research among young immigrant minorities and their ethnic-majority peers in Denmark and Sweden, two otherwise quite similar states with divergent integration and citizenship policies. It examines whether a liberal national citizenship policy, open integration rhetoric, and higher levels of national and social inclusion (as are expected in Sweden as compared to the more restrictive Denmark) are key to increasing civic identification and participation among immigrant minorities, or whether more restrictive policies and definitions of national identity drive immigrants to integrate at a higher rate by pushing them to build language competence and social contacts.The project will survey minorities and their ethnic-majority peers at high schools, trade and business colleges, adult-education programs and language schools for foreigners in the two largest cities of both Denmark and Sweden, and thus will collect information on whether they identify with the larger civic community and participate in that community's political life. To examine what drives these outcomes, the project will also gather and analyze information on beliefs on the accessibility of citizenship and social inclusion, on religious and ethnic identity, on individual background and on levels of social trust and minority-community engagement. The survey analysis will be supported by in-depth interviews with immigrants, minority leaders and policy makers to examine national identity concepts in the two countries and how the working national models have influenced minority civic engagement. Information from the survey will be analyzed to explore how national settings interact with group identity and individual characteristics to influence identification and participation, and these results will be interpreted with help from the interviews.This work has potential to inform academic, policy and public debates on integration in Europe, the United States and other immigrant-receiving countries. It will deepen knowledge of how integration policies and national definitions of who belongs are actually affecting civic integration, and will provide a baseline for other cross-national studies on civic integration in the region. Additionally, its investigation of how minority and national identities interact promises better understanding not only of immigrant identity in Scandinavia but of how social scientists can and should study identity empirically. The project's empirical and theoretical results will be communicated to policymakers and integration practitioners in Sweden and Denmark, as well as to cross-national integration research consortia in Europe and the United States. As such, the project will contribute to cross-national research on identity and integration, and has the potential to help shape citizenship policy, political inclusion practices and integration debates in immigrant-receiving societies.

过去半个世纪，来自穆斯林占多数的国家的移民及其后裔在整个西欧构成了越来越多的少数群体，一直是围绕社会问题、文化差异和安全威胁的激烈辩论的焦点。各国政府采取了不同的措施让移民融入社会，往往把重点放在经济基准上，但融合政策制定者和从业人员越来越相信，更深层次的公民参与是社会长期稳定的关键因素。是什么推动了年轻移民少数群体的公民身份认同和参与？虽然有很多关于单一背景下的参与或身份认同的学术研究，但我们很少有具体的、比较的知识来指导政策、实践和社会科学，指导不同社会中身份认同的形成和政治包容。这个项目通过对丹麦和瑞典的年轻移民少数群体及其少数民族占多数的同龄人进行初步调查研究，考察公民融合。丹麦和瑞典是两个非常相似的国家，有着不同的融合和公民政策。它考察了自由的国家公民政策、开放的融合言论以及更高水平的国家和社会包容(与更严格的丹麦相比，瑞典的预期是这样)是否是增加移民少数群体的公民认同感和参与度的关键，或者更严格的政策和对国家身份的定义是否通过推动移民建立语言能力和社会联系来推动他们以更高的速度融入社会。该项目将在丹麦和瑞典这两个最大的城市的高中、贸易和商业学院、成人教育项目和外国人语言学校调查少数族裔和他们的少数民族同龄人。并因此收集关于他们是否认同更大的公民社区并参与该社区的政治生活的信息。为了审查这些结果的驱动因素，该项目还将收集和分析关于公民身份和社会包容的可及性、宗教和族裔认同、个人背景以及社会信任和少数群体参与程度等方面的信念的信息。调查分析将得到对移民、少数族裔领导人和政策制定者的深入采访，以审查两国的国家认同概念，以及工作中的国家模式如何影响少数族裔的公民参与。调查信息将被分析，以探索国家环境如何与群体认同和个人特征相互作用，影响识别和参与，这些结果将在访谈的帮助下得到解释。这项工作可能会为欧洲、美国和其他移民接受国关于融合的学术、政策和公共辩论提供信息。它将加深对融合政策和国家对谁属于谁的定义实际上如何影响公民融合的了解，并将为关于该区域公民融合的其他跨国研究提供基线。此外，它对少数民族和民族身份如何相互作用的调查不仅有助于更好地理解斯堪的纳维亚的移民身份，也有助于社会科学家如何以及应该如何经验性地研究身份。该项目的经验和理论成果将传达给瑞典和丹麦的政策制定者和一体化从业者，以及欧洲和美国的跨国一体化研究联盟。因此，该项目将有助于关于身份和融合的跨国研究，并有可能帮助确定公民身份政策、政治包容做法和接受移民的社会中的融合辩论。