Immigrants, Schooling and Social Mobility

HANS VERMEULEN is co-Director of Research at the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam. He has been an assistant expert of UNESCO in Athens and Associate Professor at the Departments of Anthropology of the Universities of Utrecht and Amsterdam. He has published extensively on migration and ethnicity. His most recent publication is The Politics of Ethnic Consciousness (co-edited with C.Govers, 1997).JOEL PERLMANN is Senior Scholar at the Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and Levy Institute Research Professor. He is the author of Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure Among the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Blacks in an American City, 1880-1935.

• Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors The Role of Culture in Explanations of Social Mobility; H.Vermeulen The Persistence of Culture Versus Structure in Recent Work: The Case of Modes of Incorporation; J.Perlmann What Colour 'Success'? Distorting Value in Studies of Ethnic Entrepreneurship; P.Werbner The Cultural Fallacy in Studies of Racial and Ethnic Mobility; S.Steinberg Situational and Structural Rationales for the School Performance of Immigrant Youth: Three Cases; M.A.Gibson What the Jews Brought: East-European Jewish Immigration to the United States, ca. 1900; J.Perlmann Peasantry and Trading Diaspora: Differential Social Mobility of Italians and Greeks in the United States; H.Vermeulen & T.Venema The Internationalization of Back Culture: A Comparison of Lower-Class Youth in Brazil and the Netherlands; L.Sansone Creoles and Hindustanis: Patterns of Social Mobility in Two Surinamese Immigrant Groups in the Netherlands; M.Niekerk Does Culture Explain? Understanding Differences in School Attainment Between Iberian and Turkish Youth in the Netherlands; F.Lindo Breaking the Circle of Disadvantage: Social Mobility of Second-generation Moroccans and Turks in the Netherlands; M.Crul Index

'This book offers a set of fascinating and diverse studies, theoretical and empirical, of what it might mean to say that the educational and economic outcomes of migrant groups might be as a result of 'their culture'. - Tariq Modood, Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, University of Bristol 'The book's thought-provoking introductory essays and sensitive case-studies lift the debate on the role that culture plays in the social mobility of immigrants to a new level. It is truly a landmark study.' - Jeremy F. Boissevain, Emeritus Professor, University of Amsterdam 'Immigrants, Schooling and Social Mobility offers a rich diversity of views in the field of cultural issues, migration and ethnicity. Critical analysis pervades and unifies the various contributions. Theory and experience are skilfully combined.' - Eugeen Roosens, Emeritus Professor, Catholic University, Leuvan 'While explaining ethnic differences remains a lively enterprise, the discussion all too frequently takes a polarized, ideological turn. Vermeulen and Perlmann's new collection provides a refreshing alternative...A volume that deserves the attention of historians, sociologists and anthropologists alike.' - Roger Waldinger, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, UCLA '[The book] brings together essays and case-studies by leading Dutch and US scholars...which...examine the complex relationship between structural and cultural forces in shaping the life chances of ethnic minorities...By exploring what culture does and does not explain, the volume brings badly needed scrutiny to the assumptions that underlie much of educational and social scientific research.' - Philip Kasinitz, Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York '...impressive...a visionary book.' - Tamas Kozma, International Sociology