Immigration, integration and the ethnicization of politics

Since the 1960s research on immigration and integration in the Federal Republic of Germany has evolved from an emphasis on ‘social problems’ of labor migrants ( Ausländerforschung ) to questions of immigration control, citizenship and ethnic pluralism (‘multiculturalism’). Early research on migration in the 1960s and 1970s dealt with the specific problems associated with the recruitment of labor migrants, i.e. their labor market position, housing, education and the transition from school to work of their children and the economic effects of ‘guestworker’ employment on the German economy (Reuter & Dodenhoeft 1988).