The Place of Cultural Explanations and Historical Specificity in Discussions of Modes of Incorporation and Segmented Assimilation

In this new working paper, Senior Scholar Joel Perlmann discusses cultural, structural, and contextual explanations of segmented assimilation among the children of
immigrants. In it he addresses a number of questions about modes of incorporation as an explanation for ethnic differences in behavior—what, for example, is the status of cultural explanations for ethnic behavior if ethnic behavior is approached from a modes-of-incorporation perspective? The author asks this question both in connection with individuals of the immigrant generation and in connection with the second generation; the concern with the second generation leads him to consider the status of cultural explanations for ethnic behavior in connection with the related conception of segmented assimilation.