The Integration Paradox Second-Generation Immigrants and Educational Achievement in Europe

Abstract

The educational trajectories of second-generation immigrants — children born in destination countries to at least one immigrant parent — have attracted considerable scholarly attention as both an indicator of integration success and a predictor of long-term social mobility. Yet the picture that emerges from comparative research is deeply ambivalent. In some national contexts and for some origin groups, second-generation youth outperform their native-born peers; in others, they experience significant educational disadvantage. This article examines the "integration paradox" — the counterintuitive finding that greater cultural integration among second-generation youth is sometimes associated with lower educational aspirations — across five European countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Drawing on longitudinal survey data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU) and qualitative interviews with 85 second-generation youth of North African, Turkish, and South Asian origin, the study investigates the roles of school segregation, teacher expectations, identity threat, family capital, and discrimination in shaping educational outcomes. Findings suggest that the integration paradox is most pronounced in contexts of strong ethnic boundary marking and institutional discrimination, and that high parental aspirations serve as a protective factor against educational disengagement. The article proposes a revised framework for understanding second-generation educational trajectories that foregrounds the interaction between structural conditions and psychological mechanisms of identity and belonging.