Universität zu Köln

Becker, Charlotte Clara ORCID: 0000-0003-4407-6915 (2021). Migrant’s integration: Analyzing attitudes towards immigrants and national identification. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

In my dissertation, I investigated migrants’ integration from two perspectives. Firstly, from the perspective of individuals who already live in the country and have been members of society for some time and secondly from the perspective of individuals who recently immigrated. With regards to the former, I especially focused on the attitudes towards immigrants of two societal groups that have so far been underresearched: children and individuals with a migration background. In my first study I developed and validated a new measurement instrument for children’s attitudes towards immigrants. The new instrument is cost- and time-efficient and can easily be applied to children of various ages and across different cultural settings. Further, it is suitable for use in large-scale surveys. In my second study, I applied this new instrument and inspected the link between values and attitudes towards immigrants in children. The results indicate that the relations to some extent mirror those commonly found in adults, but they also show that we should not readily assume that relations existing in adults also exist in children. My third study on attitudes towards immigrants focused on adults, specifically on the differences in attitudes between individuals with and without migration backgrounds as well as across migrant generations. While overall migrants appeared to have more favorable attitudes towards immigration, differences between the generations became apparent. Regarding the migrants’ perspective on integration, I was particularly interested in the migrants’ national identification, so the degree to which they feel a sense of belonging towards the society. Previous research highlights migrants’ contact to natives as a key factor in explaining migrants’ national identification. In my work, I further explored this topic by analyzing and comparing the relations of national identification and contact to natives across three contact spheres: family, friends and workplace. Out of the three spheres having native friends had the strongest link with national identification. Concerning the other two spheres, the links were significantly weaker and highly depended on the control variables included.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Becker, Charlotte Clara becker@wiso.uni-koeln.de orcid.org/0000-0003-4407-6915 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-534446
Date:	20 September 2021
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Sociology and Social Psychology > Department of Economic and Social Psychology
Subjects:	Social sciences
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language attitudes towards immigrants English measuring children’s attitudes English values English immigration English national identification English social integration English
Date of oral exam:	20 September 2021
Referee:	Name Academic Title Davidov, Eldad Prof. Dr. Cieciuch, Jan Prof. Dr.
Funders:	University of Zurich Research Priority Program Social Networks, National Science Center in Poland
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/53444