Frank Kalter
Setting „spanish legacies“ into further context: some findings and thoughts from CILS4EU

Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2018: 41, Heft 3, S. 500-508
ISSN: 0141-9870 (print); 1466-4356 (online)

This contribution compares some major findings of “Spanish Legacies” to findings from the CILS4EU study that has been conducted in four other European countries. Despite the differences in the immigration history and the composition of the immigrant youth, basic results of psychosocial adaptation are surprisingly similar for England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. This confirms the mostly optimistic picture of the future of the second generation in Europe as drawn for Spain. In a sense, the similarities suggest that the role of the receiving context might be less important than is expected in overarching theoretical frameworks such as “segmented assimilation”. Some aspects of integration that are not covered in “Spanish Legacies” could raise more doubts on the smoothness of the adaptation processes for some immigrants groups.