IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v6y2018i3p248-259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political Integration in Practice: Explaining a Time-Dependent Increase in Political Knowledge among Immigrants in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Per Adman

    (Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden)

  • Per Strömblad

    (Department of Political Science, Linnaeus University, Sweden)

Abstract

Scholarly findings suggest that immigrants in Western countries, in general, participate less in politics and show lower levels of political efficacy than native-born citizens. Research is scarce, however, when it comes to immigrants’ knowledge about politics and public affairs in their new home country, and what happens with this knowledge over the years. This article focuses on immigrants in Sweden, a country known for ambitious multicultural policies, but where immigrants also face disadvantages in areas such as labor and housing markets. Utilizing particularly suitable survey data we find that immigrants, in general, know less about Swedish politics than natives, but also that this difference disappears with time. Exploring the influence of time of residence on political knowledge, the article shows that the positive effect of time in Sweden among immigrants remains after controlling for an extensive set of background factors. Moreover, the article examines this political learning effect through the lens of an Ability–Motivation–Opportunity (AMO) model. The findings suggest that the development of an actual ability to learn about Swedish politics—via education in Sweden, and by improved Swedish language skills—is an especially important explanation for the increase in political knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Per Adman & Per Strömblad, 2018. "Political Integration in Practice: Explaining a Time-Dependent Increase in Political Knowledge among Immigrants in Sweden," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 248-259.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v6:y:2018:i:3:p:248-259
    DOI: 10.17645/si.v6i3.1496
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/1496
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/si.v6i3.1496?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v6:y:2018:i:3:p:248-259. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.