Suchergebnisse

Mooi overzicht maar weinig vernieuwende inzichten.Boekbespreking: Richard Alba en Nancy Foner (2015) Strangers no more. Immigration and the challenges of integration in North America and Western Europe.

Einleitung In den Jahren um die Jahrtausendwende steckte die Stadt Rotterdam in einer nicht zu übersehenden Krise. Oder, wie der Rotterdamer Bürgermeister Opstelten die prekäre Situation seiner Stadt kurz nach seinem Amtsantritt zusammenfasste: Rotterdam führt die 'falschen Listen' an. Rotterdam hat die meisten Arbeitslosen und Sozialhilfeempfänger, die Mittelschicht verlässt die Stadt, insbesondere Stadtteile mit hohem Ausländeranteil leiden unter baulichem Verfall und sozialer Deprivation, aber vor allem ist Rotterdam eines: unsicher!1 Auch eine nationale Untersuchungskommission hatte auf die 'außerordentlichen Probleme' in Rotterdam bereits hingewiesen.2 Trotzdem waren es zunächst nicht Politik und Verwaltung, sondern Rotterdamer Bürger, die ein Bewusstsein für die Probleme ihrer Stadt schufen. Bereits Mitte der neunziger Jahre ergriffen Bürger des Rotterdamer Stadtteils Spangen, der als sozialer Brennpunkt gilt, die Initiative gegen das zunehmende Drogenproblem in ihrem Stadtteil. Als im Sommer 1999 die Belästigung durch öffentlichen Drogenhandel und -konsum ihren Höhepunkt erreichte, während die Polizei – in den Augen der Bürger – tatenlos zusah, besetzten protestierende Bürger vorübergehend das Rotterdamer Rathaus. Sie verlangten ein entschlossenes Vorgehen gegen die unhaltbaren Zustände und die Kriminalität in ihrem Stadtteil und wollten 'Resultate sehen'. Als sich die Situation eineinhalb Jahre später, im Jahr 2001, immer noch nicht verbessert hatte, konfrontierten Rotterdamer Bürgerinitiativen Bürgermeister Opstelten mit einer Petition, die die Versäumnisse der Lokalpolitik in Rotterdam scharf kritisierte:

Contrary to natural born citizens, migrants can have a variety of legal statuses depending on how they are classified by immigration law. Together, such legal or 'civic' statuses constitute a system of civic stratification, from high (privileged) to low (restricted). Recent scholarship highlights the relevance of immigration law for understanding crime patterns. We analytically synthesize this literature and extend it empirically by examining its usefulness in explaining the relationship between asylum migrants' civic statuses in The Netherlands and their chances of being registered as a crime suspect. Logistic regression analyses were conducted using a unique dataset in which comprehensive administrative data from various governmental sources were combined. Four civic status groups were compared: naturalized citizens, residence permit holders, asylum seekers in the procedure, and former asylum seekers whose stay in the country had become unauthorized. The results suggest that strain theory and more constructionist stances are required in order to understand the complex relationship between civic stratification and crime. We discuss implications for other countries.

AbstractThis article explores how individuals with transnational lives handle emotion management in the form of cognitive and behavioural strategies. Transnational living is defined as spending substantial amounts of time and resources in two or more countries over a longer period. We use data derived through the 'Transnational Lives in the Welfare State' (TRANSWEL) research project, for which we conducted 91 semistructured interviews with 85 individuals and six couples leading transnational lives. These respondents include immigrants living in Norway or the Netherlands as well as native‐born residents of both countries who live parts of the year abroad. While the emergent literature highlights how migration and transnationalism generally evoke feelings of nonbelonging, loss, homelessness, sorrow and guilt, we found that for many respondents, transnational living has predominantly positive attributes and that they could manage the emotional challenges of a transnational life. These results can be explained by our respondents' backgrounds, being relatively highly educated and embedded in an advanced welfare state.

The Dutch debates on immigrant integration currently strongly focus on cultural assimilation of migrants. This focus is partly based on the idea that an orientation on Dutch society and contact with the native Dutch is a condition for economic success. This article questions this assumption. Inspired by the research from Lee and Zhou (2015) among Chinese and Vietnamese migrants in the USA, who are economically successful but nevertheless strongly oriented towards their own community and culture, we examine whether this other route to economic success is also visible in the Netherlands. Our research shows that a relatively small portion (15 per cent) of the economically successful migrants in the Netherlands is relatively strongly oriented towards their own group and not so much towards the Netherlands. We found this alternative route to success primarily with the Turkish group, more with the first generation and older migrants, and more often with migrants who (often) experienced discrimination.

Om verschillende redenen stellen bekende individualiseringssociologen als Ulrich Beck en Antony Giddens dat armoede in laat-moderne samenlevingen een steeds tijdelijker fenomeen wordt en dat het daarmee eerlijker verspreid raakt over de hele bevolking. Vroeger of later, zo betogen zij, komt iedereen wel een korte periode in aanraking met armoede. In dit artikel onderzoeken Achterberg en Snel de houdbaarheid van deze vertijdelijkingsthese voor Nederland aan het einde van de vorige eeuw.

Abstract Contemporary pleas for an activating welfare state and social security system emphasize that getting benefit claimants back to work is more important than providing income compensation for social risks connected with unemployment or illness. The Dutch system of incapacity benefits, however, is far removed from this normative ideal of a proactive social security system. Resumption of work after a spell of incapacity benefit is the exception rather than the rule. This article examines possible ethnic differences in resumption of work following incapacity benefit. We use a unique register data file from Statistics Netherlands that contains information about all incapacity benefit claimants in the Netherlands in 1999. In the analysis we follow these benefit claimants for three years and examine what their labour market position was in 2002. We find that resumption of work after incapacity benefit is even more the exception for migrant workers with a Turkish or Moroccan ethnic background. Contrary to our assumption, this difference from native Dutch workers cannot be explained by unfavourable personal characteristics of Turkish or Moroccan benefit claimants – their personal characteristics (gender, age, low educational level) appear to be rather favourable for resumption of work. In the current literature, these differences in outcomes between ethnic groups are often attributed to certain 'ethnic‐specific' or cultural factors. This article argues that we should be careful of explaining different outcomes between ethnic groups by (alleged) cultural phenomena. There are other explanations possible such as differences in work motivation, lack of 'transition facilities' in companies and differential treatment by employers or social security officials.