February 2, 2012
From Multi-Racial Subjects to Multi-Cultural Citizens: Social Stratification and Ethnoracial Classification among Children of Immigrants in the United Kingdom
Speaker: Prof. Christel Kesler
Sponsered by Center for Wealth and Inequality at ISERP (Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy)
Location: 801 IAB (International Affairs Building, 420 W 118th St.)
Time: 2:00-3:30pm
Abstract: This study explores the relationship between immigrants’ countries of birth and their adult children’s racial and ethnic self-identification and how this relationship is mediated by socioeconomic factors. Using linked census data from the United Kingdom, we identify the immigrant second generation in 1971 using information on parents’ and grandparents’ places of birth, and then examine how this second generation identifies in adulthood 30 years later. Findings suggest that one’s own education, particularly higher education, has an “ethnicizing” effect for those whose parents originated in both European and non-European countries, but social class origins only affect identification among children of immigrants from outside of Europe, and in this case, higher class origins are “de-ethnicizing.” We discuss the implications of our findings for scholarship on racial and ethnic stratification, as well as for our understanding of the role of immigration in ethnic and racial boundary dynamics.
