About this Research Topic
Large-scale immigration is a pervasive phenomenon in many societies. Its volume is high and may increase further due, for example, to ongoing climate change-related processes. Most receiving societies exhibit substantial inequalities, sometimes longstanding, between immigrants and their descendants on the one hand and non-immigrants on the other. Pervasive questions in the sociological study of immigrant integration thus are how do such inequalities emerge, why do groups differ, and why do receiving countries differ? With this Research Topic we seek to enhance our understanding regarding the extent of migration-related social inequalities and the mechanisms that contribute to their emergence or disappearance.
Starting from a broad conceptualization of integration, we aim for a set of contributions that approaches a variety of dimensions of immigrant integration and, possibly, their inter-linkages. These dimensions can include: education, language proficiency, labor market access, earnings, poverty, inter-ethnic relationships or friendships, differences in various attitudinal domains, identity, citizenship, life satisfaction or health, or other aspects related to immigrant integration and social inequalities. The focus will be on contributions that use quantitative methods.
Potential contributions are not restricted to Europe or “classical” Western receiving countries. We encourage contributions from different contexts. Furthermore, we also want to encourage analyses of longitudinal and/or intergenerational processes alongside efforts to compare first generation immigrants with their descendants, as such perspectives are apt to consider time and timing as a crucial aspect of these processes. Country-comparative perspectives are also particularly welcome (both small- and large-country-N studies), as they allow observing a broad variety of institutional, structural, and cultural differences between receiving societies. This may refer to the welfare state and its facets, labor market regulation, immigration-focused policies, immigration-related attitudes and ethnic boundaries which may impact immigrant integration processes and immigration-related social inequalities.
Preliminary Timeline
The submission deadline is December 1st, 2019 for the abstracts. Based on these abstracts, the authors will be encouraged to submit first version of a full manuscript on March 1st, 2020. The authors will be invited to a conference/ authors' workshop in late spring 2020 (pending funding), where manuscripts will be presented and discussed. The review process will be single-blind.
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
