The Importance of the Culture of Origin in Immigrant Families: Empirical Findings and their Explanation by the Theory of Cultural Transmission in Minorities

This chapter proposes an integration of family research and the sociology of migration using a theory of cultural transmission in minorities recently developed by the authors. A central assumption of this theory is that sociocultural groups have a culture-transmission motive-the desire to preserve their culture and transmit it to the next generation-that is typically activated in migration situations, and then motivates activities designed to counter the perceived threat to cultural transmission. To show how this theory can help to understand social phenomena at the intersection of family research and the sociology of migration, we summarize five key findings of research on the role of the culture of origin in immigrant families and describe how they can be explained the theory: (1) cultural transmission in immigrant families typically succeeds as well as in non-immigrant families; (2) even second and third-generation immigrants typically have a strong identification with their culture of origin, which (3) manifests itself, apart from self-identification, primarily in the preservation of the language of origin, the importance placed on religious education, and intra-ethnic marriage preferences; (4) of crucial importance for the maintenance of ethnic identity in migrants is ethnic socialization in the family; and (5) abandonment of the native culture and assimilation to the majority society are neither necessary for, nor typical of, successful integration. We argue that these findings can be consistently explained by the theory of cultural transmission in minorities.