This open access book comparatively analyses intergenerational social mobility in immigrant families in Europe. It is based on qualitative in-depth research into several hundred biographies and professional trajectories of young people with an immigrant working-class background, but raised in Europe who made it into high-prestige professions. These biographies were collected and analysed by a consortium of researchers in nine European countries from Norway to Spain. Through these analyses, the book explores the possibilities of cross-country comparisons of how trajectories are related to different institutional arrangements at the national and local level. The analysis uncovers the interaction effects between structural/institutional settings and specific individual factors and family backgrounds, and how these successful individuals responsed to and navigated through sector-specific pathways into high-skilled professions, such as becoming a lawyer or a teacher. By this, it also explains why these trajectories of professional success and upward mobility have been so exceptional in the second generation of working-class origins, and it tells us a lot also about exclusion mechanisms that marked the school and professional careers of children of immigrants who went to school in the 1970s to 2000s in Europe – and still do.
This open access book comparatively analyses intergenerational social mobility in immigrant families in Europe. It is based on qualitative in-depth research into several hundred biographies and professional trajectories of young people with an immigrant working-class background, who made it into high-prestige professions. The biographies were collected and analysed by a consortium of researchers in nine European countries from Norway to Spain. Through these analyses, the book explores the possibilities of cross-country comparisons of how trajectories are related to different institutional arrangements at the national and local level. The analysis uncovers the interaction effects between structural/institutional settings and specific individual achievements and family backgrounds, and how these individuals responsed to and navigated successfully through sector-specific pathways into high-skilled professions, such as becoming a lawyer or a teacher. By this, it also explains why thesetrajectories of professional success and upward mobility have been so exceptional in the second generation of working-class origins, and it tells us a lot also about exclusion mechanisms that marked the school and professional careers of children of immigrants who went to school in the 1970s to 2000s in Europe – and still do.
Jens Schneider
Open access Upward social mobility among children of immigrants in Europe Access to high-prestige jobs 2nd generation pioneers in law, business, medicine and education Social mobility and institutional contexts Comparative qualitative research Trajectories of professional success second generation immigrants Social mobility in immigrant families Young people in high-prestige professions Professional success and upward social mobility Second generation of working-class family origins Social mobility opportunities and exclusion