Immigration, segregation and social cohesion: is the ‘German model’ fraying at the edges?

Abstract

In this article, we analyse immigrant integration against the background of German society’s social cohesion. First, we examine the integration process and policies with regard to the integration of first-generation labour migrants into the German ‘national society’ since the 1960s. Even though these ‘guest workers’ were confronted to ethnic and political exclusion owing to the so-called German integration model, they experienced socio-economic integration and, at the local level, some form of political participation. Secondly, we analyse the policies and the integration process of immigrant youth, specifically those of Turkish descent, into contemporary German society, the social cohesion of which is impeded by social exclusion and urban segregation. Our hypothesis is that – in spite of a long-standing refusal to recognise itself as an immigration country – Germany has to some extent incorporated its migrants and achieved an integration consensus, while paradoxically, national integration models in several other Western European countries are currently going through a deep crisis.

Keywords:

• integration
• German model
• urban segregation
• parallel society
• transnationalism
• integration policies

Notes

1. Source for these data: Statistisches Bundesamt. Available from http://www.bpb.de/wissen/77WAWR,0,0,Migration.html [Accessed 28 April 2013].

2. This interest arises from field research on youth of North African descent living in French suburbs (Loch 2005, 2009). The German case study in this article makes comparison possible and enables us to analyse similar problems of migrant youth’s integration into European societies. In this contribution, this is reduced to occasional comparative remarks; for a more systematic comparison, see our introduction in this special issue and Keller and Schultheis (2008).

3. The difference between these two terms is seen as gradual with regard to the socialisation process through which migrants or migrant youth acquire knowledge and the predominant values and behaviour patterns of a socially and culturally differentiated Western society.

4. The ‘second generation’ can be defined as a group of persons, whose parents were both migrants and who were born in Germany or came to this country until the age of six years (Crul and Vermeulen 2003, p. 971). For the ‘third generation’, data are not yet available with regard to their education and labour market integration, given their low age.

5. We use the term ‘social exclusion’ in the sense of marginalisation as a process in which individuals or groups have unequal access to resources, rights or opportunities. They are faced with problems such as unemployment, precarious employment, poverty, social isolation or discrimination, and this increasingly in a context of urban (residential, school, etc.) segregation and also unequal access to political participation (cf. for the German debate Kronauer 2010). A part of the immigrant youth is in the midst of this process.

6. The PISA studies (2000–2009, http://www.oecd.org/pisa/aboutpisa) that analyse the OECD education systems show that the children of immigrant descent, particularly those of Turkish origin, are less successful in the German education system than those of non-immigrant descent.

7. Source: Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Arbeitslosigkeit im Zeitverlauf, 02/2013.

8. TIES = The Integration of the European Second Generation. Available from http://www.tiesproject.eu/index.php?lang=en [Accessed 28 April 2013].

9. According to Gurr (1970), relative deprivation arises from the perceived discrepancy between aspirations to which one feels entitled and the situation attained in reality. The resulting frustrations can exert a mobilising force on the emergence of collective action.

10. This also concerns collective action. It cannot arise among migrant youth because the German state and political culture do not provide sufficient incentives as yet, which could be addressed to the state as is the case in France (Loch 2009, pp. 803–808).

11. Germany does away with itself.

12. See Institut Français d’Opinion Publique (IFOP) for Le Monde, Regards croisés France/Allemagne sur l’Islam, 13 December 2010.

13. Another criticism of national integration models stems – besides transnationalism criticism – from the emerging supranational norms of citizenship regimes and integration policies in Europe. Debate here has focused on whether national models are path-dependant (divergence) or if they give way to ‘converging policies of civic integration and antidiscrimination’ in Europe making them obsolete (Joppke 2007, p. 243, see also Borevi and with regard to Central and Eastern Europe, Kušniráková in this issue).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dietmar Loch

DIETMAR LOCH is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Grenoble.