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The paper explores how second-generation Turkish-German 'returnees' benefit from their "inbetweenness" in their ancestral homeland and initiate a process of re-inventing themselves as 'transcultural mediators'. A thematic-narrative analysis was undertaken on 43 in-depth interviews with second-generation Turkish-German 'return' migrants to Antalya who had acquired jobs in the tourism sector. The paper unpacks how this tourism hub provides "third spaces" distanced from prominent national and diasporic identities, and the ways in which these liberating spaces encourage the lifestyle-oriented, cosmopolitan second-generation 'returnees' to re-position themselves in their translocal social fields. The findings illustrate how the second generation, who formerly endured "being twice a stranger" in Germany and Turkey, undertake a process of transculturation in Antalya, and utilize their "transcultural capital" (i.e. bilingual skills, bi- multilingualism, translocal habitus) to perform different aspects of their multiple and hybrid identities, gain economic independence and build social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares several generational groups of Turkish children in Germany with respect to cognitive skills and German language skills at an early age. Empirically, children of inter-marriages outperform the other groups of Turkish children in both tests while children with a first generation mother and a second generation father score worse than all others. All group differences regarding children's cognitive skills can be explained by the families' socio-economic status and educational resources. In contrast, with respect to children's language skills also parents' endowment with receiving country specific resources ( e.g., parental German language proficiency) needs to be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]