Note
Authors affiliated with:
Department of Political Science, Concordia University.
"TSAS is supported as a national strategic initiative funded by SSHRC and Public Safety Canada, along with the following departments of the federal government: Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)".
Summary
"Generalized trust is essential in developing and maintaining common values and goals in Canada and other Western democracies. In the case of immigrants, it might be argued, generalized trust is even more important and likely plays a critical role in facilitating immigrants’ integration to the host society. This study shows that there is no deficit of generalized trust among recent immigrants in Canada. Quite the contrary, recent immigrants’ higher level of education actually appears to provide them with a larger stock of generalized trust than the remaining population. This suggests that Canada’s immigration policy, which favours the selection of well-educated immigrants, plays an important role in determining aggregate levels of trust among new immigrants. The investigation into the expression and roots of recent immigrants’ generalized trust, however, reveals a complex set of relationships. Scholars of generalized trust have argued that generalized trust can either be thought as grounded in socialization experiences or institutional structure. Both perspectives are helpful for understanding trust dynamics among recent immigrants in Canada. Together, they provide a more complete portrait of immigrants’ trust dynamics in their host society."--Includes text from Conclusion.
Contents
The origins of generalized trust among recent immigrants: the impact of pre-migration and post-migration experience -- Research design and data -- Generalized trust among recent immigrants in Canada -- Pre- and post-migration experiences and trust among recent immigrants -- Conclusion -- References -- Appendix. Construction of variables.