Intergenerational transmission of social identity: dual identification among Turkish immigrant parents and their adult children in Western Europe

ABSTRACT

This article examined the intergenerational transmission of dual identity in Turkish immigrant families in Europe using data from 2000 Families: Migration Histories of Turks in Europe. This project gathered information about Turkish immigrants and their children in seven Western European countries provided material to compare two generations’ dual identities. We conducted multinomial logistic regression analyses with standard errors clustered at the family level to study these intergenerational transmissions. We find that immigrant parents’ dual identities correlate positively with their adult children's dual identities. Our study showed that this effect was influential even in these children's adult lives and offers a contribution to the literature on the transmission of dual identities. We also found that mothers in Turkish immigrant families had a stronger effect than fathers on identity transmission.

KEYWORDS:

• Intergenerational transmission
• social identity
• Western Europe
• Turkish immigrants
• families
• dual identification

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, dr. Mieke Maliepaard and dr. Anja van Heelsum for their comments on the manuscript and their suggestions to improve it. We also want to acknowledge the discussant, Eelco Harteveld, and other participants of the Political Psychology panel held at the “Politicologenetmaal” in Leiden (2017) for their suggestions. Lastly, we want to thank the research team of the 2000Families project for making their data available.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).