Integrating immigrants in today's globalized society - The example of the Portuguese community in Germany

ISBN-13: 9783836424455 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 112 str.

Joana Da Silveira Duarte

Opis

In the last fifty years, Germany has developed into an immigration society. Incities such as Hamburg and Bremen, the percentage of foreign born citizenshas reached almost 20% of the population. Politicians, sociologists and educatorsoften speak of the need for integration, yet claim that someimmigrants resist integrative processes and therefore need to be compelledto do so with various programs. However, the minorities living in Germanystate that no solid integration policy exists, causing an exodus of qualifiedyoung immigrants. But what exactly does integration mean?The present work discusses current acculturation attitudes between the Germanhost community and one of its immigrant groups, the Portuguese. Basedon an empirical study conducted with both German citizens and Portugueseimmigrants living in Hamburg, the following thesis attempts to define thefactors that would be conducive to the integration of these immigrants intoGerman society. Factors such as the amount of contact between the twogroups, everyday experiences, educational level and language proficiencywere taken into account when analyzing possible predictors for acculturation.