Anthony Heath Director Centre for Social Investigation Nuffield College Oxford csinuffield Aims To report new evidence on the national and ethnic identities of young people in England Germany Netherlands and Sweden and to answer ID: 585229
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Slide1
How do minorities come to adopt or reject national identities?
Anthony HeathDirector, Centre for Social Investigation, Nuffield College, Oxford
@
csinuffieldSlide2
Aims
To report new evidence on the national and ethnic identities of young people in England, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden and to answerWhat are the main drivers of strong feelings of national and ethnic belonging?How does England compare with the other countries?Slide3
Theoretical expectations
influences on individualsCultural distance, especially membership of a non-Christian faith will reduce national belongingLife course and generational change will promote national belonging
Fluency in origin and destination country languages will promote ethnic and national belonging respectively
Social segregation will reduce national/promote ethnic belonging
Experiences of discrimination/membership of a racialized group will undermine national belongingSlide4
Theoretical expectations
national differencesMulticulturalist policy regimes (Sweden and England) will encourage young people to retain ethnic identities while assimilationist policy regimes (Germany) will promote national identificationCountries with a more civic conception of the nation (Sweden and Netherlands) will promote national identification whereas countries with a more ethnic conception of the nation (England, Germany) will discourage national identificationSlide5
The data
CILS4EU projectNationally-representative probability samplesTwo-stage sampling – schools then classes within schoolsFourteen-year olds interviewed in their secondary schools (self-completion booklets)
Sample sizes around 4000 in each country split between majority group and minoritiesSlide6
Measurement of national identities
“How strongly do you feel British/German/Dutch/Swedish?” very strongly, fairly strongly, not very strongly, not at all strongly.Slide7
Measurement of national and ethnic identities
“Some people feel that they belong to other groups too. Which, if any of the following groups do you feel you belong to?”
No other group
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Indian
Jamaican
Nigerian
Pakistani
Turkish
Other group – please write
in
[If
a
nother group mentioned] “How strongly do you feel that you belong to this group?”
Measurement of ethnic identitiesSlide8
Strength
of national belonging among majority and minority young peopleSlide9
Strength
of ethnic belonging among minority young peopleSlide10
Berry’s typology of assimilation, integration, separation and marginalization (minority young people only)Slide11
World regions of origin and feelings of
very strong national belongingSlide12
Religion and feelings of very strong national belonging (
minority young people only)Slide13
Generation and feelings of very
strong national belonging (minority young people only)Slide14
Social and cultural integration and feelings of very strong national belonging (
minority young people – all four countries combined)Slide15
Experiences of discrimination and feelings of very strong
ethnic and weak national belonging (minority young people – all four countries combined)Slide16
Comparative conclusions
Similarities between the four countries are much more striking than the differencesNo support for view that multiculturalism reduces minorities’ levels of national identificationLittle support for view that civic conceptions of the nation promote national belonging
But some support for polarization hypothesis
Overall Britain
compares quite well
with the other countriesSlide17
Individual conclusions
Differences between minorities with European and non-European, Christian and Muslim backgrounds tend to be small – all groups exhibit appear to be similarly in transitionMajor generational differencesSocial segregation tends to promote ethnic rather than national identification
But experiences of discrimination reduce a sense of national belonging – even among members of the majority group
. Alienated youth are not confined to minority communitiesSlide18
Concluding thoughts
Young people from minority backgrounds are in transition – most common pattern is for strongish dual identities rather than very strong single (either national or ethnic) identities
But there are major challenges if one wishes to promote greater feeling of national identification
Promoting social integration (
cf
Casey Review) will not be sufficient on its own
Promoting a warmer welcome and eliminating discrimination must also be attempted