Intercultural contact and intergenerational transmission in immigrant families

The impact of intergenerational transmission processes on the intercultural contact and ethnic identification of second generation adolescents is stud ied in five different groups of migrant families: Italian, Greek, and Turki sh work migrants, German repatriates from Russia, and Russian Jewish immigr ants in Israel. In each group, 400 same-sex dyads of parents and adolescent s were interviewed by means of a standardized questionnaire in the language of origin or of the receiving society. Four possible outcomes of intercult ural contact are distinguished: integration, assimilation, segregation, and marginalization. An explanatory model is proposed that systematically rela tes these possible outcomes to the availability of social and cultural capi tal in migrant families and to intergenerational transmission processes. Th e empirical analysis using structural equation modeling compares the result s for each migrant group. It reveals considerable variability between migra nt groups that cannot be explained by classical assimilation theory, thus d emonstrating the adequacy of the suggested model.