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This study examines the educational aspirations of immigrant students, who are descendants of eight different immigrant communities in Germany. First, the article shows that compared to native German students, the educational aspirations of students with migration origin vary substantially. Challenging previous narratives of immigrant optimism and information deficit, the article suggests that the students of Turkish origin develop a conscious appraisal of obtaining an academic high-school qualification (AHSQ), even if they realize they will not be able to receive one by the end of the high-school. The study also shows that the duration of their stay in Germany plays a significant role in attenuating the high educational aspirations of most immigrant communities. However, Turkish students constitute an exception to this finding as they maintain high idealistic aspirations from first- to third-generation. The return migrant students from the former Soviet Union are the only group who report high educational aspirations, when asked about both their idealistic and realistic aspirations. Finally, the findings indicate that the position of the particular immigrant groups within the German social status hierarchy is a strong determinant of the educational aspirations of immigrant students and their parents.

Immigrant children's educational assimilation has been a concern to policymakers in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which has received continuous immigration from Mainland China. This chapter examines the academic progress of Mainland Chinese immigrant students in Hong Kong's junior secondary schools from Form 1 (7th grade) to Form 3 (9th grade). Our database is the Medium of Instruction Longitudinal Survey (MOILS) that tracks a cohort of junior secondary students in 1999–2000 from a representative sample of all Hong Kong secondary schools. We find that Mainland students start out in Form 1 at a higher level of achievement than do native Hong Kong students in all academic subjects except the English language. They attain greater subsequent achievement gains than do native students in most subjects. Even though they do not catch up with native students in the English language, they narrow the nativity gap over time. Mainland students’ high performance cannot be explained by their low socioeconomic backgrounds, or the poor- and low-achieving schools they attend. School type and age moderate the nativity-achievement relationship. Schools with low-ability students are more effective than are schools with higher-ability students in promoting Mainland students’ achievement. Older Mainland students show greater academic progress than do younger students regardless of nativity. The implications of these Hong Kong results for the United States and international studies on immigrant children's academic assimilation are discussed.

A common perception about immigrant assimilation is that association with natives necessarily speeds the process by which immigrants become indistinguishable from natives. Using 2000 Census data, this paper casts doubt on this presumption by examining the effect of an immigrant's marriage to a native, a measure of social integration, on dropout rates of children from these marriages. Although second-generation immigrants with one native parent generally have lower dropout rates than those with two foreign-born parents, the relationship reverses when steps are taken to control for observable and unobservable background characteristics. That is, immigrants that marry natives have children that are more likely to drop out of high school than immigrants that marry other immigrants. Moreover, gender differences in the effect of marriage to a native disappear in specifications which control for the endogeneity of the marriage decision.

The purpose of this paper is to explore health from the perspective of young immigrants in Sweden.

A total of 25 newly arrived young immigrants attending Swedish language classes in northern Sweden participated by drawing and writing open letters. They continued the open-ended sentence “Now I’ll draw and describe a day when I was feeling good, that was […].”

The phenomenological analysis resulted in three themes: longing to be in control for a better life, searching for power in the good and the bad, and striving for a sense of belonging in the new society. The findings illuminate young immigrants’ perspectives of a health-promoting everyday life consisting of agency, reflection and a sense of community. The findings also highlight the young immigrants’ experiences when health-promoting aspects are lacking, characterized by disillusionment, anxiety and loneliness. The findings are discussed with health promotion, health literacy and young immigrants in mind.

According to young immigrants, meeting basic needs such as food, sleep and housing is health promoting but easily taken for granted. Being able to have a say in matters concerning everyday life, social inclusion and finding power in memories – positive and negative – can promote health in young immigrants.

The young immigrants were able to communicate via drawings and words to overcome language barriers.

There is a dearth of research on how immigrants' cognitive attributes influence their willingness to be self-employed. To offset this paucity, the current study draws on the insights of social cognitive theory (SCT) to examine the immigrants' entrepreneurial alertness.

The authors hired Qualtrics to recruit educated, working immigrants in the USA and tested the hypotheses using a sample of 555 highly educated, employed immigrants from 92 home countries.

This study finds that immigrants' cognitive cultural intelligence (CQ) contributes to entrepreneurial alertness in a positive way. In addition, immigrants' perceived environmental differences and global identity positively moderate the relationship between cognitive CQ and entrepreneurial alertness.

This research provides a clear picture of how cognitive CQ impacts immigrants' entrepreneurial alertness; thus, the findings of this study offer ample implications for policymakers. By applying SCT, the current study extended research on immigrants' entrepreneurial alertness by shifting the focus from their individual (e.g. demographic background) or family characteristics to their cognitive attributes. This study suggests that policymakers and entrepreneurship education programs in the U.S.A. should consider offering various types of cultural training programs.

Yair and Gazit argue that many researchers – preoccupied with the effects of schools – ignore the forceful influence of home environs and parenting practices. They build from Goffman's (1967) theory of student engagement and the alternative, alienation from the school institution. As articulated by Yair and Gazit, the theory documents a tug-of-war between teachers’ efforts to capture their students’ attention and the multiple stimuli that distract students from pursuing their formal studies. The authors convincingly apply this model to the overcrowded and chaotic environments in which many Ethiopian children grow up.

To investigate the special services for immigrants which are offered by Swedish libraries on their different levels (regional, local and school) and how these services conduct themselves to the development of the harmonic multicultural society.

The methods used in this research were interviews with librarians, the study of documents, followed by a comparative analysis. The guiding theory was a three‐phase model mentioned by Gillis Herlitz, according to which a newcomer goes through stages in an adaptation period. Phase 1 is described as a positive “honeymoon” phase, while phase 2 is a critical period of negative emotions, dominated by disappointment, which then ideally should be resolved in phase 3, where the individual reaches a balancing stage of cultural integration and successful adaptation.

The performances of public libraries on different levels seem to operate in a way that corresponds to the different phases in this model. The approach of the local libraries is more individual and psychological. Their services correspond to those immigrants, who find themselves in the “disappointment” phase, whereas the activities of the regional libraries are more informative and suitable for the “balancing” phase. The school libraries have the educational features and do not depend on the phase of immigrants’ adaptation.

The Public Library of Borås, The Library of Komvux (The Municipal Adult Education Library) and The Hässlehus Library (the library in the district occupied mainly by immigrants) were chosen for this study.

To help immigrants overcome their difficulties of adaptation period in the new country.

This paper demonstrates how the libraries can act as a lifeline for immigrants.