Citizenship leads immigrants to integrate, not the other way around: Swiss Study

2015/10/07 Leave a comment

Interesting analysis of Swiss citizenship and the link to political integration:

When they surveyed these immigrants a decade later, they found that those whose applications were only just approved had significantly higher political integration than those who had only just failed. These people had increased political knowledge, were more likely to feel that they had a political voice, and were more likely to participate in politics through actions like voting, contacting politicians, or donating to political parties. This was consistent even for immigrants from different countries.

Because the survey was conducted in 2011-2014, which was a decade or more since the last citizenship votes in Switzerland, the researchers suggest that the results are picking up on genuine, long-term changes. It’s possible that immigrants might have a spike in their political participation after a successful application, but a temporary change is unlikely to have continued for a decade or more, they argue.

One important question to consider is whether the process in Switzerland has some characteristics that are likely to be different from other countries. For instance, perhaps something about gaining citizenship as a result of a vote by other citizens is really the catalyst for political participation rather than the citizenship itself. It’s possible that an immigrant who receives a positive vote on such a personally important matter might place more trust in the system and engage with it more than an immigrant who receives a negative vote.

Another potential objection to this study is that the researchers are wrong to assume that borderline cases are really all that similar. For the experiment to work, it has to be assumed that immigrants whose applications just failed by a hair’s breadth, and those who just passed, are the same in all important respects. When the researchers looked at characteristics like education levels, country of origin, or how long they’d lived in Switzerland, they did look the same. However, it could be the case that there were important details the researchers missed that actually made all the difference in political integration.

Given that social and political integration of immigrants is often something that policies explicitly aim to encourage, this is important information. Although a natural experiment like this would be difficult to find in other countries, future research will need to confirm whether the same effect seems to be consistent in different countries with different immigration procedures.

Source: Citizenship leads immigrants to integrate, not the other way around | Ars Technica

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Russell Smith: Asylum seekers are the stars of this Canadian arts initiative

2015/09/28 Leave a comment

MamalianInteresting initiative to encourage understanding and integration, using the arts:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how art has been interpreting the European refugee crisis. I was reminded after that of a Canadian artistic initiative currently happening in Germany that has direct contact with recent migrants. It is the work of the Toronto-originating theatre/social planning group called Mammalian Diving Reflex, directed by its creator, Darren O’Donnell.

The goal of this company is not to write plays and to put them on a stage, but to create social events that bring people together. They claim they aim to “trigger generosity and equity.” They do wacky things like getting children to give adults haircuts, but also deeply serious things like their current work in a small town in Germany, Hemsbach, near Mannheim.

There they have just finished a lengthy project centred around a reception centre for recent immigrants, designed to bring the newcomers and the German-born townspeople together, in an effort to find jobs for the immigrants.

O’Donnell himself stayed in the immigrant dormitory, with his co-worker Chozin Tenzin (also from Toronto), in a couple of beds that had been left vacant when some of the inmates were taken away by police. The town has about 80 recent asylum seekers staying in the holding centre, from everywhere from the Balkans to India. He then organized goofy events such as a cooking contest, for the refugees and for the German-born, in which participants were forced to use difficult ingredients from all over the world in their dishes.

The short-term goal was to facilitate interaction and understanding; the long-term goal is to leave a system of similar events in place, to continue after O’Donnell’s company leaves. (He calls this system the Hemsbach Protocol.)

O’Donnell likes in particular to work with teenagers, which he has been doing in the Ruhr region of Germany since 2013. It is only coincidentally that his work there became entangled with the refugee influx to Germany. His last project there, part of the Ruhrtriennale festival, near Dusseldorf, was called “Millionen! Millionen!” – a line from the Romantic poet Schiller’s Ode to Joy. (Yes, the one Beethoven used in his Ninth Symphony.) That poem is the European Union’s anthem and mantra, particularly for its now painfully relevant line, “Be embraced, you millions.”

The project was, like most of Mammalian Diving Reflex’s things, hard to define – social outing, urban planning, performance. In collaboration with a German theatre collective called Mit Ohne Alles, they got a bunch of teenagers of diverse immigrant backgrounds to go camping for a weekend, then take careful note of each interaction. Some talked deeply, some fell in love.

The performance, crafted afterwards, was a kind of barely-scripted play in which the teenagers recreated, for an audience, some of the interactions that had taken place over the weekend, with large images projected and everyone who had participated on the stage at once. The theme was “embracing.” Now that newer immigrants from the war-torn Middle East and Africa are showing up, such forced embracings will have a different edge and a different echo.

In theatre terms, this kind of practice is a kind of experimentalism called “post-dramatic,” an idea of the German critic Hans-Thies Lehmann. The primary intellectual influence on O’Donnell is the work of Nicolas Bourriaud, the art curator who wrote about “relational aesthetics,” the theory that stresses an artist’s role as catalyst for social interaction rather than centre of attention.

Source: Russell Smith: Asylum seekers are the stars of this Canadian arts initiative – The Globe and Mail

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ICYMI: Whose Neighborhood Is It? – The New York Times

2015/09/18 Leave a comment

Tom Edsall on some of the integration challenges in the US and the progress that has been made:

These suburban Detroit communities provide a case study in what has come to be called the “tipping point,” the point at which whites begin to leave a residential locale en masse as African-Americans or other minorities move in.

This phenomenon puzzled Thomas Schelling, a professor emeritus of economics at Harvard and a Nobel Laureate, who was struck by the lack of stable integrated communities. In 1971, he began work on a mathematical theory to explain the prevalence of racial segregation in a paper titled “Dynamic Models of Segregation,” published in the Journal of Mathematical Sociology.

Schelling’s famous thesis has been carefully summarized by Junfu Zhang, an economist at Clark University. Zhang writes:

Schelling’s most striking finding is that moderate preferences for same-color neighbors at the individual level can be amplified into complete residential segregation at the macro level. For example, if every agent requires at least half of her neighbors to be of the same color―a preference far from extreme―the final outcome, after a series of moves, is almost always complete segregation.
In other words, residential segregation can emerge even if initial preferences are very slight.

According to Schelling, Zhang writes,

“in an all-white neighborhood, some residents may be willing to tolerate a maximum of 5 percent black neighbors; others may tolerate 10 percent, 20 percent, and so on.

The ones with the lowest tolerance level will move out if the proportion of black residents exceeds 5 percent. If only blacks move in to fill the vacancies after the whites move out, then the proportion of blacks in the neighborhood may reach a level high enough to trigger the move-out of the next group of whites who are only slightly more tolerant than the early movers. This process may continue and eventually result in an all-black neighborhood.

Similarly, an all-black neighborhood may be tipped into an all-white neighborhood, and a mixed-race neighborhood can be tipped into a highly segregated one, depending on the tolerance.”

In the years since 1971, scholars have followed up on the Schelling argument with empirical studies.

Residential and public school integration remain an immense challenge. Affordable housing, one piece of the integrative process, got a boost from a favorable Supreme Court decision in June, Texas Department of Housing, that further empowers plaintiffs in housing discrimination cases. A second boost came from new HUD regulations issued in July requiring local governments “to take significant actions to overcome historic patterns of segregation, achieve truly balanced and integrated living patterns, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities.”

Government action has often been resisted but, over time, it has pulled millions of blacks into the mainstream of American life. From 1940 to 2014, the percentage of African-Americans ages 25 to 29 with high school degrees rose from 6.9 percent to 91.9 percent. Over the same period, the percentage of blacks with college degrees grew from 1.4 percent to 22.4 percent. From 1963 (a year before enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) to 2015, the percentage of blacks employed in management, professional and related occupations more than tripled, from 8.7 percent to 29.5 percent.

Although progress toward racial and ethnic integration has been sporadic – frequently one step forward, two steps back – credible progress has been made over the last 75 years. We have not come to the end of the story, but there are grounds for optimism.

Source: Whose Neighborhood Is It? – The New York Times

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Financement supprimé: la Fédération canado-arabe perd en appel | National

2015/08/20 Leave a comment

And so it ends (as part of the Government’s defence, I had to submit an affidavit as part of the discovery process):

La Cour d’appel fédérale a rejeté la tentative de la Fédération canado-arabe de faire renverser une décision par laquelle son financement avait été supprimé en raison d’allégations voulant que le groupe soutienne les actions d’organisations terroristes.

Dans sa décision, la Cour d’appel a dit que la fédération ne pouvait réclamer «un devoir d’équité procédurale» de l’ancien ministre de l’Immigration Jason Kenney.

Le banc de trois juges a unanimement confirmé la décision de la Cour fédérale, à l’effet que M. Kenney avait suivi le protocole en décidant de ne pas renouveler le financement d’un programme d’apprentissage de langues pour les immigrants en 2009-2010.

Citoyenneté et Immigration a déclaré à la fédération en mars 2009 que certaines déclarations faites par ses responsables semblaient être antisémites et soutenir des groupes terroristes.

La lettre du ministère affirme que cela soulevait de sérieuses préoccupations au sujet de l’intégrité de la fédération et que cela avait miné la confiance du gouvernement envers l’organisme en tant que partenaire approprié pour offrir des services aux nouveaux arrivants.

La fédération avait plaidé en Cour fédérale que les déclarations en question avaient été faites par des personnes qui ne représentaient pas officiellement l’organisation et qu’elle ne les avait pas approuvées.

via Financement supprimé: la Fédération canado-arabe perd en appel | National.

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Statscan explains why private school students perform better

2015/04/02 Leave a comment

Not terribly surprising that socio-economic status and education-levels account for most of better performance of private schools but substantiated by the data:

The Statscan report, released Tuesday, says the reason for the higher performance of private school students is their socio-economic status, which includes a higher family income and higher-educated parents.

The study followed more than 7,142 students starting at the age of 15, looking at their scores on standardized tests and their completed educational qualifications by the age of 23.

“No differences in outcomes were attributable to school resources and practices,” the report concludes.

Marc Frenette, one of the two researchers who conducted the study, said the school resources analyzed include student-to-teacher ratio, computer resources available, teacher qualifications and number of teachers available to tutor students.

The study did not look at classroom-based factors, including teaching style, classroom lessons or extracurricular activities offered to students, Mr. Frenette said. It also did not consider the curriculum the schools teach.

Schools from Atlantic Canada were excluded because of a low number of private high schools in those provinces, Mr. Frenette said.

The higher socio-economic status of private school students and their peers accounts for half of the difference in the average score of standardized tests between private and public school students and “two-thirds of the difference in university graduation rates” between the two groups of students, according to the report.

Jim Power, principal of Upper Canada College, an all-boys private school in Toronto, said the selection process that private schools undertake means that their students are more motivated.

“Private schools, by definition, are selective. We’re fortunate. We take one out of three students who apply,” Mr. Power said.

Statscan explains why private school students perform better – The Globe and Mail.

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Tories worried about base finding out how much they spend helping immigrants – The Globe and Mail

2015/03/11 Leave a comment

Interesting but not surprising, suggesting that some of the Conservative embrace of immigration and new Canadians may not be fully shared within the party.

But settlement funding, after an initial increase by the Government, has been trimmed and reallocated to reflect more recent immigration trends (i.e., more to the West, less to Ontario), along with efforts to improve the effectiveness of language training (still the bulk of settlement services I think).

Moreover, there have always been questions regarding the proportion of funding given to Quebec in relation to the number of immigrants choosing Quebec:

A briefing note for a Conservative MP suggests the government is worried about how spending on immigration programs is going over with its base.

The House of Commons immigration committee is currently studying how government-funded settlement services can better help the economic integration of immigrants.

A note which appears to have been prepared for Costas Menegakis, the parliamentary secretary for immigration, says the party’s base will learn as a result that the government spends close to $1-billion a year on those efforts.

The note says the other risk of undertaking such a study is that the government’s relationship with Quebec may surface as an issue.

And while the study only began last month and the committee has only just started hearing from witnesses, the briefing note also lays out five recommendations for its the eventual report.

A copy of the note was obtained by The Canadian Press.

Menegakis’ office declined to comment specifically on the note’s contents.

“Committee members are masters of their own proceedings,” said an emailed statement. “As always, we look forward to hearing testimony from all witnesses.”

Liberal MP John McCallum, who sits on the committee, called it “chilling” to see the reference to the party’s base in the document.

“It’s as if they are concerned their own supporters would be aghast at the idea of spending money to help settle immigrants,” McCallum said in an interview.

“It’s good not only for the immigrants, it’s good for the country if the newcomers settle quickly and work and not be receiving welfare and become productive Canadians.”

The Conservatives credit much of their electoral success in recent years to the inroads the party has made among new Canadians. They’ve also massively overhauled the immigration system which they’ve said is partially motivated by concerns raised from within the newcomer community.

Tories worried about base finding out how much they spend helping immigrants – The Globe and Mail.

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Afghan immigrant studying in Vancouver wins Loran scholarship

2015/02/26 Leave a comment

The feel-good story of the week on how Canada provided Somaya Amiri opportunities, and how her determination enabled her seizing them:

When Somaya Amiri was a little girl, she’d watch each morning as her big brother hoisted a backpack over his shoulders and walked to school in Afghanistan’s Behsood District. She remembers desperately wanting to go too.

The day she decided to follow him, her father noticed she was missing from the house and caught up with her at the school. He was furious.

“When I got home my mom and grandmother were crying,” Ms. Amiri said in an interview. “They told me that when you are a girl, you don’t go to school.”

Ms. Amiri now finds herself pondering which of Canada’s top universities she will attend.

This month, the 17-year-old was among 30 Canadian high school students named Loran scholars. Under the program, she will receive up to $100,000 to fund four years of tuition. The scholarship also includes a mentorship program and money for summer internships.

Afghan immigrant studying in Vancouver wins Loran scholarship – The Globe and Mail.

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Apprenticeships in Germany: No guest workers please | The Economist

2015/02/23 Leave a comment

Explains, at least partly, some of the integration problems in Germany:

Yet one part of the population is barely benefiting from the system. A quarter of young Germans have foreign roots, but just 15% of the companies currently running apprenticeship schemes have at least one apprentice with what German bureaucrats call a “migration background”. The biggest such group is ethnically Turkish, but the numbers also include ethnic Germans from formerly communist Europe. Over 60% of apprenticeship-hosting companies have never had an apprentice like that, according to a survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation, a think-tank.

The reasons make depressing reading. Almost 75% claimed they had received no such applications, though the study notes minorities are more likely to apply than the average population. The next factor cited is language deficiencies. This may be an excuse: children of foreign parents raised in Germany usually speak German better than the ancestral language (though language may be a proxy for better-founded worries about generally poor schooling). The real fear may be a vague nervousness about foreigners, given that about 15% of companies cited unspecified cultural barriers.

Yet applicants are in short supply: nearly half of the companies that could take apprentices but don’t blame a lack of qualified candidates. Casting the net more widely would help. Siemens reserves about 10% of its apprenticeships for those who would not pass the first hurdle on their marks in school, on the logic that grades are hardly the best test for a skilled manual worker. This also has the result of bringing in more ethnic minorities. And given Germany’s export dependence, diversity—bringing knowledge of funny-sounding languages and different cultural backgrounds—should be a plus. The companies with the longest records in training apprentices are the most likely to hire those with foreign roots. Some say they do so to help the disadvantaged, but even more cite simply having had good experiences doing so in the past.

If Germany’s labour market continues tightening and the skill-labour shortage continues, perhaps word will also filter out to Germany’s fabled medium-sized Mittelstand companies. Such firms hold tradition as a virtue, and even boast of hiring the children of former apprentices, citing the resulting loyalty as an advantage.

But when 70% of Mittelstand companies complain of a lack of skilled labour, there is all the more reason to cast a wide net. Not hiring people because of fears about their lack of integration into German society is likely to prove self-fulfilling. In a country where career-switching and later retraining are rare, missing the early rungs on the economic ladder can be life-blighting.

Apprenticeships in Germany: No guest workers please | The Economist.

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Millions for immigrant services in B.C. went unspent

2015/02/10 Leave a comment

This has been a long-standing issue:

The draft report, called Lessons Learned Study: British Columbia’s Contribution to Settlement and Immigration 1998-2013, appears to explain why the federal government stripped authority to run the program from the province effective April 1, 2014, said Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.

“It certainly justifies it,” said Kurland, who obtained the document through the Access to Information Act.

The report noted that B.C. officials were “less than effective” in presenting financial information, and “significant amounts were not accounted for.” It also noted that the federal government did not do an adequate job of ensuring B.C. gave a full account of how the funds were spent.

“(Citizenship and Immigration Canada) officials had ongoing concerns regarding consistent lapsed funds, accountability and access to (program) evaluation findings. C.I.C. also had questions related to B.C. serving non-eligible clients such as Canadian citizens and temporary foreign workers.”

The report said B.C. officials had indicated that the funding for non-immigrants and non-refugees came from B.C.’s contribution to immigrant settlement coffers, which generally totalled eight to 10 per cent of the entire federal-provincial settlement budget.

“While B.C. noted that ineligible clients were served with provincial funds, it was not always clear for C.I.C. officials if this was in fact the case,” the report said.

…The transfer back to federal government control has been a “huge transition” for the sector, Friesen said.

“Under the provincial government … the focus of the relationship was on the services to clients, the output. We had greater flexibility … to be able to move funds around to address gaps in services,” Friesen said.

“The funding regime is very, very different under the federal government with far more focus on the financial management than necessarily on the service side. … You could say it was the opposite under the provincial government.”

Millions for immigrant services in B.C. went unspent.

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Québec devrait inciter les immigrants à s’installer en région, croit Charles Taylor

2015/02/03 Leave a comment

Immigrants tend to go where they perceive the jobs are so not sure how realistic this proposal is.

But his reference to having more immigrants in the hinterland to reduce some of the fears among some “Québécois de souche” through more contact with newcomers has merit:

L’avantage de ce procédé serait double: disperser l’immigration et combler les emplois vacants en région.

«Ce sera une espèce de marché qu’on conclut avec une personne: il y a ce travail concret, on a beaucoup de mal à le remplir. Vous allez le remplir, alors là on est très d’accord pour vous faire passer rapidement à travers toutes les étapes» du processus de sélection, a-t-il illustré.

Entre 2009 et 2013, deux immigrants sur trois (70 %) ont choisi de prendre racine à Montréal. Si on inclut Laval et la Montérégie, on découvre que la très grande majorité (84 %) des nouveaux arrivants s’implantent dans la métropole ou autour, dans ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler le «450».

Leur présence en région paraît infinitésimale: 0,1 % ont choisi la Gaspésie, 0,2 % l’Abitibi et 0,3 % le Saguenay, durant la même période.

Avec son collègue Bouchard, M. Taylor proposera donc, notamment, un moyen d’inverser cette tendance, lors de leur témoignage jeudi devant la commission parlementaire qui se penche sur la future politique d’immigration québécoise.

C’est une approche gagnant-gagnant, fait-il valoir: «Il suffit qu’il y ait un contact humain entre les immigrants de toutes sources et les Québécois de souche, qu’ils se fréquentent un peu et les différentes craintes, les préjugés, les paniques, disparaissent.»

La sélection des candidats pourrait même être conditionnelle à leur acceptation de s’installer en région. Mais M. Taylor prône une approche plus incitative que coercitive. Il ne s’agit pas de leur «forcer la main», mais de créer des conditions favorables.

Québec devrait inciter les immigrants à s’installer en région, croit Charles Taylor | Jocelyne Richer | Politique québécoise.

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