Inequality and Integration

Projektinformationen

IneQint

ID Finanzhilfevereinbarung: 101142895

DOI

10.3030/101142895

EK-Unterschriftsdatum 15 Juli 2024

Startdatum 1 Oktober 2024

Enddatum 30 September 2029

Finanziert unter

• European Research Council (ERC)

Gesamtkosten

€ 3 459 992,75

EU-Beitrag

€ 3 459 992,75

Koordiniert durch

STIFTELSEN INSTITUTET FOR FRAMTIDSSTUDIER
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IneQint (Inequality and Integration)

Berichtszeitraum: 2024-10-01 bis 2026-03-31

Zusammenfassung vom Kontext und den Gesamtzielen des Projekts

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. This project focuses on inequality and spatial segregation, 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, and social relations among classmates. 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 around 5000 pupils in 100 representative Swedish comprehensive schools, coupled with parent, register and digital data.
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 its high immigration (particularly from the Middle East and Africa’s horn), increasing income inequality, growing ethnic and socioeconomic school segregation, and decreasing support for immigration. 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. The study also obtains information on schools, producing a comprehensive picture of the school setting by which a further understanding of the processes behind inequality and integration can be achieved.

Arbeit, die ab Beginn des Projekts bis zum Ende des durch den Bericht erfassten Berichtszeitraums geleistet wurde, und die wichtigsten bis dahin erzielten Ergebnisse

First, the majority of our work so far has been to prepare for and carry out the planned data collection, which is ongoing. Second, we have published several articles in leading journals, with some highly important results. Third, we have also written for general audiences, in outlets geared towards university students and the general public. Results have been achieved with regard to ethnicity and child poverty, socialisation effects in adolescent networks, pre-school attendance of children of immigrantts, ethnic ingroup partnering, and ethnicity and peer pressure in schools. Fourth, throughout the project we have participated in meetings politicians and representatives of the civil society and given talks and lectures on the topics of inequality and integration. Fifth, we have made significant progress in developing methods and strategies for next year’s data collection.

Fortschritte, die über den aktuellen Stand der Technik hinausgehen und voraussichtliche potenzielle Auswirkungen (einschließlich der bis dato erzielten sozioökonomischen Auswirkungen und weiter gefassten gesellschaftlichen Auswirkungen des Projekts)

The data collection has great promise, although we won''t know until 2028 really.
From our publications, we can point to some very important results:
Our published findings suggest that socialization has a neutralizing effect, rather than a polarizing effect, on prejudice in adolescent friendship networks.
Teenagers of foreign background who ‘act white’ by studying hard have a tendency to lose friends among their own group.
Immigrant families who are bound to stay in Sweden participate in early schooling almost to the same degree as children of native origin, rendering the political initiatives to implement mandatory pre-schooling for improving language skills toothless. However, children of immigrant origin have a higher percentage teachers of immigrant origin, potentially harming their destination country language learning.
Endogamy - the tendency for ethnic groups to ingroup partnering - is very high in some groups in Sweden, predominantly MENA-origin groups. It appears that only some of this is due to residential segregation.