Re-thinking Assimilation and Integration

How does immigration transform societies and relations between ethnic and racial groups? This volume brings together scholars working at the cutting-edge of theory and empirical research on integration and assimilation in the US and Europe. It is dedicated to the life and works of Richard Alba, who has done so much to re-invigorate and establish ideas about integration and assimilation.

The book aims to open a dialogue on the continuing value of assimilation and integration for studying social change in an era of increasing ethno-racial diversity in Western liberal democracies. Assimilation and integration, and the understandings of societal change that they theorise, depict, and empirically study, remain a contested terrain that is open for critical re-evaluation. This insightful volume offers a set of expert scholarly contributions, including contributions from Richard Alba himself, that tease out critical junctures and disagreements, in the belief that this collective effort can provide insights about where the future research agenda needs to go.

Re-thinking Assimilation and Integration will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of sociology, ethnic and racial studies, international politics, and migration studies. It was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

Paul Statham is Professor of Migration and Director of Sussex Centre for Migration Research, a Centre of Excellence at the University of Sussex. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Paul is a political sociologist. He has written several collaborative books, including Contested Citizenship: immigration and cultural diversity in Europe (2005), edited volumes, and more than 80 articles in refereed journals. His current research interests are integration and assimilation perspectives; Islam and Muslim minorities in Europe; and mobilities and migration between Europe and Thailand.

Nancy Foner is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her many books on immigration include From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration (2000), Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe (co-authored with Richard Alba, 2015), and most recently, One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America (2022).