TY  - JOUR
A1  - Khalil, Samir
A1  - Kohler, Ulrich
A1  - Tjaden, Jasper
T1  - Is  there a rural penalty in language acquisition?
BT  - evidence from Germany's refugee allocation policy
JF  - Frontiers in sociology
N2  - Emerging evidence has highlighted the important role of local contexts for integration trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees. Germany's policy of randomly allocating asylum seekers across Germany may advantage some and disadvantage others in terms of opportunities for equal participation in society. This study explores the question whether asylum seekers that have been allocated to rural areas experience disadvantages in terms of language acquisition compared to those allocated to urban areas. We derive testable assumptions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which are then tested using large-N survey data (IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey). We find that living in a rural area has no negative total effect on language skills. Further the findings suggest that the "null effect" is the result of two processes which offset each other: while asylum seekers in rural areas have slightly lower access for formal, federally organized language courses, they have more regular exposure to German speakers.
KW  - refugees
KW  - allocation policies
KW  - rural
KW  - language acquisition
KW  - intergroup
KW  - contacts
KW  - language courses
KW  - integration
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.841775
SN  - 2297-7775
VL  - 7
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Khalil, Samir
A1  - Kohler, Ulrich
A1  - Tjaden, Jasper Dag
T1  - Is There a Rural Penalty in Language Acquisition? Evidence From Germany's Refugee Allocation Policy
JF  - Frontiers in Sociology
N2  - Emerging evidence has highlighted the important role of local contexts for integration trajectories of asylum seekers and refugees. Germany's policy of randomly allocating asylum seekers across Germany may advantage some and disadvantage others in terms of opportunities for equal participation in society. This study explores the question whether asylum seekers that have been allocated to rural areas experience disadvantages in terms of language acquisition compared to those allocated to urban areas. We derive testable assumptions using a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which are then tested using large-N survey data (IAB-BAMF-SOEP refugee survey). We find that living in a rural area has no negative total effect on language skills. Further the findings suggest that the “null effect” is the result of two processes which offset each other: while asylum seekers in rural areas have slightly lower access for formal, federally organized language courses, they have more regular exposure to German speakers.
KW  - refugees
KW  - allocation policies
KW  - rural
KW  - language acquisition
KW  - intergroup contacts
KW  - language courses
KW  - integration
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.841775
SN  - 2297-7775
VL  - 7
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
PB  - Frontiers
CY  - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER  -