8 - Intergenerational Transmission, Social Capital, and Interethnic Contact in Immigrant Families

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The extent of intergenerational transmission is seen in the context of migrant families as a major mechanism by which the adolescents' intraethnic and interethnic social contacts are shaped and their social identification is structured. To integrate these family-related aspects of the social incorporation of immigrants, classical theoretical models of assimilation processes have to be extended and modified. The following empirical analyses examine the role of intergenerational transmission in the social incorporation of second-generation adolescents. As a starting point for an adequate modeling of intergenerational transmission processes, a classical action-theoretical model by Esser (1980) was chosen. This theoretical model includes both contextual and individual mechanisms that affect the assimilation process: Opportunity structures, action barriers, and action alternatives are related to the perceptions, cognitions, and evaluations of the individual actor in a simple two-level (i.e., context and individual) process model of cognitive, structural, social, and identificational assimilation. According to this model, personal preconditions of the assimilation process are partly “imported” motivational and cognitive attributes that are confronted with the opportunities provided by the respective context in the receiving society and that “match” a specific social and structural placement as the starting point of an assimilation career. Discrimination is seen in this theoretical model as a major source of action barriers that thus restricts the action alternatives for social integration of minority members.