Second Generation Migrants - Detailseite

Immigrants have become the center of attention for both scholars and the public. Of particular concern have been debates about immigrants’ integration into their new host societies. However, far more important than the immigrants themselves in questions of integration are their children, what we label second generation migrants. They grow up in a new environment yet they are still influenced by their parents. Migrant youth develop various ways of dealing with this combination of social and cultural backgrounds. Some distance themselves from people of the same country of origin, while others celebrate and reify their ethnicity, and some create new cultural repertoires and draw on multiple cultural frameworks. 

In this seminar we will discuss different kinds of second generation migrant identity politics by focussing on the socio economic and cultural context of migrant youth on the one hand, and on the educational background and peer group associations on the other hand. Moreover, we will elaborate on nostalgic relations with their parents´ place of origin. Very often members of the second generation have grown up in transnational social fields. This leads some to actually migrate to the place where their parents come from. Based on ethnographies from various countries along with survey data we will explore different trajectories of settlement and translocal practices among second generation migrants.

If you are interested in participating, please send an email to

gertrud.huewelmeier@rz.hu-berlin.de and stepick@fiu.edu

Levitt, P. and Waters, M.C. (eds) 2002.  The changing face of home. The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Tekla Nicholas, Alex Stepick, and Carol Dutton Stepick 2008. „Here’s Your Diploma, Mom!  Family Obligation and Multiple Pathways to Success,” In: Exceptional Outcomes:

Achievement in Education and Employment among Immigrant Children, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Christou, A. 2006. American dreams and European nightmares: Experiences and polemics of second-generation Greek-American returning migrants. In: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Rumbaut, R. and A. Portes, Eds. (2001). Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press.  

Crul, M. and H. Vermeulen (2003). "The Second Generation in Europe." International Migration Review 37(4): 965-986.        

Thomson, M. and M. Crul (2007). "The Second Generation in Europe and the United States: How Is the Transatlantic Debate Relevant for Further Research on the European Second Generation?" Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33(7): 1025-1041.