Integration of young migrants in Luxembourg: A focus on social identity and intergroup processes

In the past years, more and more young migrants from third countries have arrived to Europe. While the economies of ageing European societies can profit from an influx of young people in their labour market, the integration of young third-country nationals poses also challenges both to individuals and societies. The integration of young migrants is a dynamic process that encompasses developmental and adaptive processes at multiple levels and over time. In particular young migrants in vulnerable conditions might be at risk for social exclusion. In order to understand the factors that foster or hinder integration, it is therefore particularly important to analyze the ingroup-outgroup processes involved here from a societal, institutional and individual perspective. The present study is part of the larger EU-funded H2020 MIMY project (EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions) which involves 13 multinational and interdisciplinary partners to study the integration processes of young non-EU migrants across 9 countries (Luxembourg, Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Hungary). The MIMY project applies a mixed methods approach, including secondary data analysis as well as qualitative data from young migrants and their parents, from host society nationals and stakeholders through narrative, biographical and expert interviews as well as focus groups. For the present contribution, we will concentrate on qualitative data collected in Luxembourg. More precisely, drawing on focus group interviews regarding the challenges and resources in the integration processes of migrant youth, we will analyze here the ingroup-outgroup processes as described by migrant youth themselves as well as by migrant parents of adolescents/emerging adults living in Luxembourg. We will in particular identify processes of social identity, intergroup attitudes and patterns of social contact. Thereby, a special focus will be put on the experiences of social inclusion/exclusion and host societal attitudes toward migrants as experienced by our study participants. Our results will be discussed in relation to current integration policies, and ideas for an improvement of the situation of young migrants in Luxembourg and Europe will be formulated