Studying Integration from Adolescence to Early Adulthood: Design, Content, and Research Potential of the CILS4EU-DE Data

This data brief describes the German part and extension of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU-DE). The aim of CILS4EU-DE is to provide a data-infrastructure for theory-driven and evidence-based research on various aspects of integration among young people with and without an immigrant background in Germany. Key features of the survey are (i) its large and representative sample, with an oversampling of respondents with an immigrant background; (ii) the inclusion of a refreshment sample that maintains a convenient size, composition, and representativeness of the sample also in later waves; (iii) the focus on a young target population, allowing to investigate integration processes through a formative period of life; (iv) the longitudinal design with so far seven waves; (v) the focus on a wide variety of integration outcomes, accompanied by the use of innovative measures allowing to apply cutting-edge methods in integration research; and, not least (vi) the incorporation of CILS4EU-DE in the international CILS4EU-project, facilitating to study integration processes also in a comparative perspective in England, The Netherlands, and Sweden.