Pathways to Success - Germany

Children of immigrants and their sucessful trajectories in urban and international comparison


In this project, we focus the educational and professional trajectories and social mobility careers of immigrants’ descendants in the cities of Berlin, Frankfurt/Main and in the Ruhr area. Our aim is to identify main factors - e.g. personal, social but also institutional - influencing educational trajectories as well as professional careers and professional success in different areas of the labour market.

In a first step, the project looks at quantitative data gathered in the research project “The integration of the European Second Generation (TIES)”. The main part of the study consists of 90 qualitative in-depth interviews with people of Turkish origin and a comparison group of native, working-class background who are working in different professional sectors (business, law, teaching, public administration). Local case studies and contextual analyses of the selected cities and metropolitan areas will accompany the qualitative fieldwork. A particular focus in the analyses of the empirical data will be put on the potential influence of urban contexts on successful careers and social mobility of people of immigrant and non-academic background. Additionally, the German data will be compared with the data collected in the other European countries.

Project team: Prof. Dr. Andreas Pott, Dr. Jens Schneider, Christine Lang M.A.

Duration: 2011-2015

The research project “Pathways to Success” is a project of the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) of the University of Osnabrück; it is funded by the Stiftung Mercator.