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

在过去的半个世纪里，来自穆斯林占多数的国家的移民及其后代在整个西欧构成了越来越多的少数民族，他们一直是有关社会问题、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来融合移民，通常侧重于经济基准，但融合政策制定者和实践者越来越相信，更深层次的公民参与是长期社会稳定的一个重要因素。是什么推动了年轻的少数族裔移民的公民认同和参与？虽然有很多关于单一环境下的参与或认同的学术研究，但我们很少有具体的、比较的知识来指导政策、实践和社会科学在不同社会中的认同形成和政治包容。本项目通过对丹麦和瑞典的年轻少数族裔移民及其多数族裔同龄人的初步调查研究来考察公民融合，这两个国家在其他方面非常相似，但融合和公民政策不同。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（正如瑞典与更严格的丹麦相比所期望的那样）是否对增加移民少数群体的公民认同和参与至关重要，或者更严格的政策和国家认同定义是否通过推动移民建立语言能力和社会联系来推动移民以更高的速度融入社会。该项目将对丹麦和瑞典两个最大城市的高中、商贸学院、成人教育课程和外国人语言学校的少数族裔及其多数族裔同龄人进行调查，从而收集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。为了研究这些成果的驱动因素，该项目还将收集和分析有关公民身份和社会包容的可及性、宗教和种族认同、个人背景以及社会信任和少数群体社区参与水平的信仰信息。调查分析将通过对移民、少数民族领导人和政策制定者的深入访谈来支持，以检查两国的民族认同概念，以及有效的民族模式如何影响少数民族公民参与。来自调查的信息将进行分析，以探索国家设置如何与群体认同和个人特征相互作用，从而影响认同和参与，这些结果将在访谈的帮助下进行解释。这项工作有可能为欧洲、美国和其他移民接收国关于一体化的学术、政策和公开辩论提供信息。它将加深对一体化政策和国家对谁属于谁的定义如何实际影响公民一体化的认识，并将为该区域关于公民一体化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移民的身份，也有助于更好地理解社会科学家如何能够和应该从经验上研究身份。该项目的实证和理论结果将传达给瑞典和丹麦的政策制定者和一体化实践者，以及欧洲和美国的跨国一体化研究联盟。因此，该项目将有助于对身份和融合的跨国研究，并有可能帮助制定移民接收社会的公民政策、政治包容实践和融合辩论。

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.