Inequality and Integration

Introduction

Socioeconomic inequality has become increasingly intertwined with immigrant status in many Western European societies. One important question is whether and how socioeconomic disadvantages among immigrant parents hamper the integration of their children.

Focus of the Project

This project focuses on inequality and spatial segregation, and how they affect the children of immigrants in terms of their wellbeing and structural, social, and cultural integration. We ask how integration in different dimensions comes to be, analyzing the internal workings of schools, including:

• Grading
• Ability grouping
• Social relations among classmates

Data Collection

The complex nature of the questions we address requires outstanding and up-to-date data: one of the major contributions of this project is to collect such data. This will be achieved via a longitudinal survey conducted among 5000 pupils in 100 representative Swedish comprehensive schools, coupled with parent, register, and digital data.

Opportunities for Assessment

The project also offers excellent opportunities to assess changes in inequality and integration over the last 15 years through comparisons with pre-existing data. Sweden provides a particularly interesting case due to:

1. High immigration (particularly from the Middle East and Africa’s horn)
2. Increasing income inequality
3. Growing ethnic and socioeconomic school segregation
4. Rapidly decreasing support for immigration

Study of Social Relations

The data will make it possible to study changes in inter-ethnic social relations, attitudes, values, religiosity, and subjective wellbeing over time – all within the context of the structural opportunities set by inequality and segregation.

Comprehensive School Analysis

The study also obtains information (from teachers, headmasters, and registers) on school organization, resources, and climate, producing a comprehensive picture of the school setting. In this sense, it is more than a survey conducted in schools; it is a survey of schools, the pupils that populate them, and the resources and milieu they are embedded in.