Intercultural Contact and Intergenerational Transmission in Immigrant Families

Abstract

The impact of intergenerational transmission processes on the intercultural contact and ethnic identification of second generation adolescents is studied in five different groups of migrant families: Italian, Greek, and Turkish work migrants, German repatriates from Russia, and Russian Jewish immigrants in Israel. In each group, 400 same-sex dyads of parents and adolescents were interviewed by means of a standardized questionnaire in the language of origin or of the receiving society. Four possible outcomes of intercultural contact are distinguished: integration, assimilation, segregation, and marginalization. An explanatory model is proposed that systematically relates these possible outcomes to the availability of social and cultural capital in migrant families and to intergenerational transmission processes. The empirical analysis using structural equation modeling compares the results for each migrant group. It reveals considerable variability between migrant groups that cannot be explained by classical assimilation theory, thus demonstrating the adequacy of the suggested model.