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Transition to adulthood among the children of Turkish immigrants

Completed Project

Project Management

Martin Kroh (SOEP), Olaf Groh-Samberg (BIGSSS, Universität Bremen)

Project Period

April 1, 2014 - March 31, 2016

Commissioned by

German Research Foundation (DFG)

The project analyzes the life courses of young people with a Turkish ethnic background. A unique feature of this study is the integrated analysis of quantitative and qualitative data using a mixed-method design. To this end, qualitative interviews will be carried out with 30 selected longtime respondents to the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). It relates to the research work carried out in the context of the German-French DFG–ANR (French National Research Agency) project “Professional strategies and status transitions of young adults with a migration background in German-French comparison” (in cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin).

The research project has five key goals:

  • First, it aims at facilitating interpretation of the life course patterns of children of Turkish migrants identified in quantitative analyses in order to better understand their life decisions, individual experiences, strategies of action, and ways of dealing with the conditions imposed by personal contexts and social environments.
  • Second, it will investigate whether and to what extent biographical turning points can be identified in the life course. Turning points are defined here as changes of orientation in strategies of action. These either correspond to specific status transitions or occur in response to important life events.
  • Third, the project will evaluate interviews to test and refine existing theories about the conditions for social ascent.
  • Fourth, the project will examine how different life course patterns are associated with different orientations or different degrees of ethnic and cultural integration.
  • As a fifth and final goal, the project will explore the potentials, problems, limitations, and particularly the importance of the methodological triangulation for panel surveys as well as possible survey effects in subsequent waves. Qualitative interviews will also be used to evaluate and further develop the instruments used in SOEP to measure migration biographies and individual orientations towards home and host countries. This new enterprise is the third project that combines quantitative and qualitative research methods based on the SOEP.
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