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Group Formation among Immigrants: Criteria and Processes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Raymond Breton  and
Maurice Pinard
Raymond Breton
Affiliation:
University of Montreal
Maurice Pinard
Affiliation:
The Social Research Group, Montreal
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Extract

Much attention has been devoted by sociologists and social psychologists to the question of the introduction of new members into a group or society. Preoccupation with this broad problem is visible, for instance, in studies of conversion to a religion, of movement from one social class to another, and of change of residence from one community or country to another. Not all studies, however, deal with the same aspects of the problem. Some focus on the factors which bring about such movement from one group to another. Others are concerned with the effects the movement has on both the group of origin and the group of destination. Finally, a good proportion of the studies purport to answer the following questions: What changes occur in the basic values, sentiments, and ways of behaving of the individual? To what extent are there such changes, and through what processes do they take place? This latter group of studies centres on concepts such as acculturation, integration, assimilation, adaptation, or absorption.

These concepts all refer to the same phenomenon, although perhaps from different angles. Park and Burgess, for instance, present the following general notion of “assimilation”: “A process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life.” Blau has a very similar conception of the integration of the socially mobile into a new class. So does Eisenstadt with the concept of “adaptation,” although his definition is stated in terms of the final result rather than in terms of the process whereby it is achieved.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , November 1960 , pp. 465 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1960

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Footnotes

*

This paper is part of a larger project conducted by the Social Research Group, Montreal, and sponsored by Le Conseil des Œuvres de Montréal and by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Citizenship Division. It is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Saskatoon, June 6, 1959. We should like to thank Professor James S. Coleman of Johns Hopkins University and Professor David Kirk of McGill University for their helpful remarks and criticisms.

References

1 Park, R. E. and Burgess, E. W., Introduction to the Science of Sociology (Chicago, 1921), 735.Google Scholar

2 Blau, P. M., “Social Mobility and Interpersonal Relations,” American Sociological Review, XXI, 1956, 290–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eisenstadt, S. N., “Research on the Cultural and Social Adaptation of Immigrants,” International Social Science Bulletin, III, 1951, 258–62.Google Scholar “[Adaptation is] the effective capacity to perform successfully those social roles inherent in the social structure of the new country which circumstances require of them” (p. 258).

3 See, e.g., Stonequist, E. V., “The Problem of the Marginal Man,” American Journal of Sociology, XLI, 1935, 1–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also, Wright, V., “Summary of Literature on Social Adjustment,” American Sociological Review, VII, 1942, 407–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Introduction to the Science of Sociology, 736–9.

5 See: “The Place of Elites and Primary Groups in the Absorption of New Immigrants in Israel,” American Journal of Sociology, LVII, 1951, 222–31Google Scholar; and “Research on the Cultural and Social Adaptation of Immigrants.”

6 “Social Mobility and Interpersonal Relations.”

7 Eighteen years of age or older. Consular agents and other representatives of foreign governments as well as foreign students were excluded from the list.

8 Merton, R. K. and Lazarsfeld, P. F., “Friendship as Social Process” in Berger, M., ed., Freedom and Control in Modern Society (New York, 1954), 21–2.Google Scholar

9 Riecken, H. W. and Homans, G. C., “Psychological Aspects of Social Structure” in Lindzey, G., ed., Handbook of Social Psychology (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), II, 794.Google Scholar

10 Linton, R., The Study of Man (New York, 1936), 113–14.Google Scholar

11 We may note that status homophily is also consistent with the idea that an important source of attraction to groups, both formal and informal, is that “groups frequently mediate the attainment of important individual goals.” People of similar statuses frequently have similar or complementary interests in respect of the goals they are seeking, and may be drawn together in the pursuit of these personal goals. See Festinger, L., “Group Attraction and Membership” in Cartwright, D. and Zander, A., eds., Group Dynamics (Evanston, Ill., 1953), 92.Google Scholar Also Newcomb, T. M., “The Prediction of Interpersonal Attraction,” American Psychologist, XI, 1956, 575–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Lundberg, G. A. and Steele, M., “Social Attraction-Patterns in a Village,” Sociometry, I, 1938, 375–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Loomis, C. P., “Political and Occupational Cleavages in a Hanoverian Village, Germany,” Sociometry, IX, 1946, 316–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Ford, H. T. and Smith, B. R., “Some Factors Involved in High School Friendship Choices,” Sociology and Social Research, XXXIV, 1950, 273–80.Google Scholar

15 Hughes, E. C., “Social Change and Status Protest” in Hughes, E. C. and Hughes, H., Where Peoples Meet (Glencoe, Ill., 194–5).Google Scholar For a more extensive review of the literature on this question, see, e.g. Lindzey, G. and Borgatta, E. F., “Sociometric Measurement” in Lindzey, , ed., Handbook of Social Psychology, I, 429–31.Google Scholar

16 Measures of homophily are most valid when they take account of the number of people that can be chosen in a certain category. In-group choices are much more likely to occur if the group is large than if it is small, and this circumstance should be integrated into the measure. (On this question see, e.g., Coleman, J. S., “Relational Analysis,” Human Organization, XVII, no. 4, 28–36.Google Scholar) In this study, however, we lacked data on the universes from which each individual could choose; we were thus prevented from using a measure of the type mentioned above. Our measure is probably fairly valid owing to the fact that the above problem progressively disappears as the size of the group within which choices are made increases. For instance, let us suppose that each individual can choose five kinds of people and that there are at least 1,000 persons in each of these categories. The fact that these groups would vary greatly in size would not make much difference. It would make a lot of difference, however, if two of the categories comprised only 100 individuals each. It seems reasonable to assume that each of the categories from which the immigrants could choose their associates is fairly large.

17 Social relations are to a certain extent what we may call sporadic; that is to say, interaction is more frequent at some particular times than it is at others. Our measure of social relations, however, is an attempt to grasp the “continuing” ones, that is, those that are actualized gradually, in a uniform way. It is also our contention that the “continuing” relations are more important in people's lives and behaviour than the sporadic relations, if only for the reason that they are more regular. Moreover, some kinds of social relations are more sporadic than others. Social relations with relatives, for instance, are more dependent on the occurrence of certain events (such as Mother's Day) than are other types of social relations. This may be one of the reasons why we observe that, as continuing relations, they are relatively unimportant.

Another, perhaps more important, reason that accounts for the relatively small amount of social relations with relatives that was observed is that the number of relatives with whom the respondents can associate is small as compared to other categories of people. People have comparatively few relatives anyway, and most immigrants leave some of theirs behind in their country of origin.

18 Simmel, G., The Web of Group-Affiliations, trans. Bendix, R. (Glencoe, Ill., 1955), 185–9.Google Scholar

19 Lenski, G., “Social Participation and Status Crystallization,” American Sociological Review, XXI, 1956, 458–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 “Group Attraction and Membership,” 95.

21 There is a relation between an immigrant's occupational status and the likelihood of his associating outside his ethnic group: the probability is higher for white collar workers than it is for blue collar workers. However, the difference between the two classes of workers disappears when educational achievement is held constant.