New from IMR: Migrant (Im)mobilities, Refugee Dynamics, and Belonging
May 9, 2023
The Fall 2022 edition of the International Migration Review (IMR) is now available online and in print through paid or institutional subscription. This edition is thematically sorted into four sections. The first section has articles about migrant (im)mobilities: contested laws, geopolitics, and naturalizations. The second section discusses refugee dynamics, integration, and the state. The third section is about race, religion, and migrant belonging. The fourth section examines acculturation and transnational frameworks in Europe. Lastly, this edition includes seven book reviews, which are free to access.
Refugee Status, Settlement Assistance, and the Educational Integration of Migrants’ Children in the United States
Thoa V. Khuu and Frank D. Bean
Initial relations between the host society and migrants are likely to influence whether and to what degree migrants receive tangible and intangible settlement support that might affect their children’s educational integration. As part of the 1980 Refugee Act, the United States officially began to provide settlement support to one group of migrants – refugees, thus institutionalizing more favorable host-society relations for refugees compared to non-refugee migrants. This article assesses the general idea that post-1980 US refugees will show higher levels of integration than non-refugees by testing the specific hypothesis that refugees’ foreign-born children will attain (by adulthood) higher levels of educational attainment than their non-refugee counterparts. As expected, we find that more schooling is completed among refugees’ children than among non-refugees’ children, all else being equal. We also observe that the level of governmental support at arrival is positively associated with educational attainment among refugees’ children. As expected, schooling differentials also drop in accordance with arrival-period declines in support due to drops in refugee children’s schooling. The results highlight the pivotal roles that initial host-society/migrant relations play in fostering refugee integration and underscore the potential societal benefits from adopting and maintaining settlement policies for migrants.
Immigration, Identity, and Anonymity: Intentionally Masked Intolerance in Ireland
Mathew J. Creighton, Éamonn Fahey, and Frances McGinnity
Newcomers to Ireland confront a context of reception shaped by large-scale historical emigration and more recent immigration defined by an increasingly diverse set of origin contexts, both within and outside the European Union (EU). How has the Irish population responded to these groups, and how openly do Irish residents express their views toward different immigrant groups? We test this response using a survey experiment, which offered respondents an anonymous way to express any negative attitudes to immigrant groups they may have had. Results from the survey experiment show that Irish residents’ support for Black and Polish immigrations is overstated when expressed directly. In contrast, their sentiment toward Muslim immigrants is notably insensitive to the level of anonymity provided, indicating little difference between overt and covert expression of support (or antipathy). In other words, when race/ethnicity or EU origin is made salient, Irish respondents are more likely to mask negative sentiment. When Islam is emphasized, however, Irish antipathy is not masked. We find that in-group preferences, instead of determining support in an absolute sense, shape the reluctance with which opposition to immigrant groups is overtly expressed.
Countering linear acculturation theories, the adoption of Western European gender customs over time differs across migrant groups. This diversity implies that acculturation into support for gender equality is context dependent. However, little quantitative scholarship has identified what sort of contexts strengthen or impede acculturation. This article investigates one source of context-dependent acculturation: exclusionary contexts. I build and test a context-dependent exclusions framework that proposes that contexts that exclude non-Western migrants hamper their acculturation into support for gender equality in the labor market in Western Europe. Empirically, I synchronize European Social Survey, European Values Study, and Eurislam data on over 11,000 non-Western migrants in Western Europe. Cross-classified models show that non-Western migrants’ support for labor-market gender equality is, indeed, lower in exclusionary contexts, for instance, in destinations with stronger anti-migrant sentiments. Pivotally, the impact of destinations’ gender customs on migrants’ gender values differs across destination, origin, and community contexts. For instance, in destinations with stronger populist right-wing parties, migrants internalize destinations’ gender equality less. Altogether, non-Western migrants’ acculturation into support for labor-market gender equality is highly dependent on contextual exclusions, which means that populist claims about non-Western migrants’ universal lack of acculturation into support for gender equality should be viewed cautiously.
MIGRANT (IM)MOBILITIES: CONTESTED LAWS, GEOPOLITICS, AND NATURALIZATIONS
Immigration, Sanctuary Policies, and Public Safety
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Thitima Puttitanun, and Mary Lopez
From “Sea Turtles” to “Grassroots Ambassadors”: The Chinese Politics of Outbound Student Migration
Jiaqi M. Liu
REFUGEE DYNAMICS, INTEGRATION, AND THE STATE
Collectivized Discretion: Seeking Explanations for Decreased Asylum Recognition Rates in Finland After Europe’s 2015 “Refugee Crisis”
Johanna Vanto, Elsa Saarikkomäki, Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi, Nea Lepinkäinen, Elina Pirjatanniemi, and Juha Lavapuro
Refugee Status, Settlement Assistance, and the Educational Integration of Migrants’ Children in the United States
Thoa V. Khuu and Frank D. Bean
Health-Care Utilization of Refugees: Evidence from Austria
Thomas Schober and Katrin Zocher
RACE, RELIGION, AND MIGRANT BELONGING
Discrimination of Black and Muslim Minority Groups in Western Societies: Evidence From a Meta-Analysis of Field Experiments
Lex Thijssen, Frank van Tubergen, Marcel Coenders, Robert Hellpap, and Suzanne Jak
Immigration, Identity, and Anonymity: Intentionally Masked Intolerance in Ireland
Mathew J. Creighton, Éamonn Fahey, and Frances McGinnity
ACCULTURATION AND TRANSNATIONAL FRAMEWORKS IN EUROPE
Point of Reference: A Multisited Exploration of African Migration and Fertility in France
Julia A. Behrman and Abigail Weitzman
BOOK REVIEWS
The Coffin Ship: Life and Death at Sea During the Great Irish Famine
Cian T. McMahon
Reviewed by Lindsay Janssen
The Invisibility Bargain: Governance Networks & Migrant Human Security
Jeffrey D. Pugh
Reviewed by Maria-Jose Rivera
Development, (Dual) Citizenship and its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia
Robtel Neajai Pailey
Reviewed by Thabani Mutambasere
Migration and Political Theory
Gillian Brock
Reviewed by Matthew R. Joseph
Migration Studies and Colonialism
Joe Turner and Lucy Mayblin
Reviewed by Jessica Stallone
Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers: Negotiating Meaning and Making Life in Bloemfontein, South Africa
Jonatan Kurzwelly and Luis Escobedo
Reviewed by Dr. Amanuel Isak Tewolde
Advanced Introduction to Migration Studies
Ronald Skeldon
Reviewed by David Scott FitzGerald