The integration of immigrant youth into the school context

The objective of this research is to examine the influence of acculturation preferences, sex and age on immigrant youth's social integration into the school context of their host society. The analyses are performed using the survey of 1,186 immigrant youth and their teachers from 225 classes. The cross- sectional survey was conducted in primary public schools in the German-speaking part of Switzerland between February and April 2008. A generalized linear model was employed to analyze the questions of the study. In short, the results indicate that those immigrant youth who wish simultaneously to maintain their ethnic cultural heritage as well as to adopt the mainstream culture have the best prospects of being socially integrated at school. The findings also show that among immigrant youth girls tend to be better socially integrated at school than boys. Furthermore, younger immigrants indicate better social integration than the older ones. Finally, the immigrant youth's social integration within the school is supported by teachers favoring an integration strategy.