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This paper highlights the ways Syrian refugees in Sweden utilise the different forms of capital available to them in order to find jobs and rebuild their careers. Relying on 25 in-depth interviews with Syrians who sought asylum in Sweden between 2012 and 2015, we discuss their use of social and cultural capital in order to access the Swedish labour market. While all our respondents are aware of the need to acquire capital in Sweden in order to find opportunities for work, their homeland cultural capital informs their decisions, outlooks and the kinds of options they utilise to navigate the institutional requirements in their new environment. As a result, the majority end up replicating their social positions that they had in Syria. Our analysis indicates that institutional programs aimed at labour market integration need to account for the role of social and cultural capital in realizing their goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue collects articles, which aim to re-envision integration, dislodging the previously monodirectional conceptual flow sourced in the Global North. Jointly, the articles pursue a critical scholarship contributing to multicentric knowledge production, disrupting binaries of integrated/nonintegrated, inclusion/exclusion, citizen/non-citizen, or indeed self/other. They evidence ambivalent subject positions, neither fully-included nor fully-excluded, and engender forms of belonging to the places immigrants are momentarily located in, albeit without a steadfast position granting them rights. The collected articles also emphasize the various scales of integration, be it wider global or regional flows, as well as more localized, zoomed-in, and ephemeral manners of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the subjective understanding of success among members of three groups of children of immigrants from Mexico, North Africa and Turkey, in Dallas, Paris and Berlin respectively, by accounting for their educational and early labor market experiences. We utilize neo-assimilation and segmented assimilation theories and highlight their divergence with regards to downward assimilation and frames of reference. We focus on the working-class children of immigrants in the three settings, as they are at the highest risk of downward mobility. We find that frames of reference play a significant role in shaping the subjective understandings of success among the three groups. Despite their disadvantaged position, Mexican Americans in Dallas regard their experiences as successful given their significant departure from their parents' low status. French North Africans in Paris, on the other hand, emphasize their limited ability to overcome the restrictions imposed on them by French society and especially schools. Doing so, they compare themselves to their French peers who do not have an immigrant background. Children of immigrants from Turkey in Berlin, by comparison, encounter labor market discrimination but feel successful relative to their parents' generation. We find that the children of immigrants in our study rely on members of their social networks who impact their labor market experiences as their frame of reference. When they compare themselves to their parents or earlier waves of immigrants, the children of immigrants perceive their accomplishments in a positive light. When they compare themselves to mainstream society, however, they emphasize persisting inequalities. Our conclusions emphasize the importance of understanding subjective experiences of success and mobility that have been largely ignored in the migration literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on postcolonial understandings in order to offer a sociological analysis of Lebanese immigrants in Montreal, New York City and Paris. I argue that the concept of diaspora provides a framework for understanding the contradictory aspects of Lebanese immigrant experiences, as some immigrants may undergo a process of assimilation while others continue to hold on to their ethnic identities. Investigating Lebanese immigrant communities as a diaspora leads to the understanding of the ways immigrants construct solidarities that include their homeland, host societies, and the larger diaspora community in various parts of the world. As an analytical framework, 'diaspora' incorporates multiple loyalties and attachments that are integral to processes of international migration. Thus, the framework of diaspora promises significant contributions to the understanding of the complex dynamics involved in migration and globalization. Key Words: diaspora, immigrant communities, Lebanese immigrants, transnationalism, globalization