Children of Immigrants in a Globalized World—A Generational Experience

Drawing on in-depth empirical case studies with youths from across the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and America, this book explores the lives of adolescent children of immigrants; those who, endowed with high cultural capital, are living the generational experience of growing up in a post-industrial, globalized and interconnected world. Although they face specific social constraints, this generation is also developing new skills such as managing ambivalence and multiple belongings, shifting codes and languages and claiming new forms of participation in social life. Accustomed to moving from one context to another, these children learn to use difference, equality, belonging, loyalty and identification in complex ways to help further their own personal opportunities. This book argues that one can view the diverse experiences of these young people more broadly to help shed light on the everyday social processes that are affecting contemporary youth as a whole.