Social integration
Introduction
Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society.[1] Social integration is understood as the set of actions that enable marginalized people to participate in the minimum level of social well-being achieved in a given country.
Social integration focuses on the need to move towards a "safe, stable and just society", remedying the conditions of social disintegration, social exclusion, social fragmentation, exclusion and polarization, and expanding and strengthening the conditions of social integration towards peaceful social relations of coexistence, collaboration and cohesion.[2].
Definition
The term “social integration” was first used in the work of French sociologist Émile Durkheim. I wanted to understand why suicide rates were higher in some social classes than others. Durkheim believed that society exerted a powerful force on individuals. He concluded that the beliefs, values and norms of a people constitute a collective consciousness, a shared way of understanding each other and the world.[3].
Integration was first studied by Park and Burgess in 1921 through the concept of assimilation. They defined it as "a process of interpenetration and fusion in which people and groups acquire the memories, feelings and attitudes of other people and groups and, by sharing their experience and history, join with them in a common cultural life."[4].
While some scholars offered a theory of assimilation, arguing that immigrants would be assimilated into the host society economically, socially, and culturally over successive generations,[5] others developed a theory of multiculturalism, anticipating that immigrants could maintain their ethnic identities through the integration process to shape the host society with a diversified cultural heritage.[6]
Building on assimilation theory, a third group of scholars proposed a segmented integration theory, emphasizing that different groups of migrants can follow different trajectories towards upward or downward mobility in different dimensions, depending on their individual, contextual and structural factors.[7][8].
Measurements
Compared to other dimensions of integration, social integration focuses more on the degree to which immigrants adapt local customs, social relations, and everyday practices. It is usually measured through social networks, language, and intermarriage.[9].