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Immigration Request for Proposals
January 2008
The Russell Sage Foundation invites proposals for a new initiative to support research on the political incorporation of immigrants in U.S. society.
For over a decade, the Foundation's program on immigration has been committed to research on the second generation in the U.S. The program has sought to understand how well the current large wave of immigrants is adapting to American economic and social life. Immigrants at the turn of the last century struggled in low-wage jobs and segregated neighborhoods, but within several generations, their families caught up to natives in the educational, economic, and social spheres. Because traditional avenues of upward mobility in America and the ethnic and racial profile of recent immigrant groups have changed in ways that may render successful immigrant incorporation more problematic, the Foundation supports research that can provide evidence of the intergenerational progress of today's immigrants.
Since 1991, the Russell Sage Foundation Immigration research program has made 73 awards, totaling over $9 million, and has hosted 36 Visiting Scholars. Two large studies undergird the program's effort to understand recent immigrants' trajectories in the U.S. The first of these is the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, which surveyed second generation high school students in Miami and San Diego in three waves, as they made their way through school and entered young adulthood. The second is the New York Immigrant Study, which employed a large household survey, in-depth interviews and ethnographic field studies of young, second generation adults in five immigrant groups and three native born comparison groups in the New York metropolitan region. The New York study examines educational achievement, labor market participation, and family formation, among many other issues. A similarly comprehensive study of second generation immigrants in Los Angeles is now underway.
In addition to this research on the second generation, the Foundation also issued an RFP in May 2000 for research on the impact of the many ethnic and national identities of recent immigrant cohorts on the diversity of the U.S. population and the evolution of American institutions and national culture. The goal of this initiative has been to support work that examines whether contemporary racial and ethnic divisions will prove to be as porous in the 21st Century as ethnic categories were in the 20th, or whether the greater racial and ethnic diversity of recent immigrants will encounter more intransigent forms of resistance and exclusion. The Foundation has supported 15 projects that examine the changing meaning of racial and ethnic diversity in U.S. society. The titles of these projects, as well as fuller descriptions of Foundation-supported work on the second generation, are available on the Foundation's website.
To complement these existing research initiatives, the Foundation now invites proposals for projects on the political incorporation of immigrants in U.S. society. While the social and economic progress of the nation's 32.5 million immigrants is increasingly well charted, the extent of the immigrant participation in the civic and political life of the country has received less attention. And, while theories of the economic and educational assimilation of immigrants have changed to reflect the experience of immigrants after 1965, pathways to political incorporation remain comparatively understudied.
We might expect immigrants who assimilate socially and economically to assimilate politically as well, and adopt views that can be coherently located within the American liberal-conservative continuum. In contrast, immigrants who do not learn English or assimilate in terms of their socioeconomic status may remain marginal to American political life at the local or national levels. However, it is also possible that political incorporation depends on structural or electoral features of a particular geographic location, on the impact of particular policies, on the mobilization efforts of advocacy groups, or on immigrants' own political concepts. Though we know that Americans of high socioeconomic status participate in politics more than do Americans of lower socioeconomic status, it is possible that political dynamics may be very different from socioeconomic ones. Political and socioeconomic incorporation may follow similar trajectories, may interact, or may be independent.
Projects submitted in response to this request for proposals may address any of a variety of important questions about the political incorporation of immigrant groups. For example, to what degree do immigrants participate in local organizations, campaign politics, or governance? How and when do immigrants join in political coalitions? What policies do immigrants support or oppose, and why? How, if at all, are political parties and advocacy groups seeking to mobilize immigrants? How do particular laws or regulations affect immigrant political incorporation? How do boundaries around localities, the nature of the electoral system in a given locality, and other place-based factors affect immigrant political incorporation? How do immigrants' values and norms map onto traditional American categories of liberal or conservative, egalitarian or individualistic? How do transnational ties affect immigrants' political beliefs and activities? Through support for research on topics such as these, this initiative aims to understand better the conditions under which immigrants to the U.S. are received, the ways in which immigrants may experience exclusion from civic and political life, and the policies that impact their political identities and participation.
The Foundation welcomes proposals to conduct surveys, comparative case studies, intensive case studies, and ethnographies. Under this new initiative, two types of research proposals are invited: small-scale exploratory projects with budgets of less than $35,000, and full-scale research projects with budgets ranging from $35,000 to $150,000. Smaller projects might consist of exploratory fieldwork, a pilot study, or the analysis of existing data. Proposals should describe the research questions, the core theoretical ideas that guide the inquiry, the data to be used, the plans for analysis, and the plans for publication. These project proposals should be no more than 20 double-spaced pages in length.
Support may be provided for empirical research, summer salary, research assistance, analysis, travel, meeting costs, and materials and supplies. Support is not available for release time or hardware acquisition. Salary support for the academic year may be provided only for projects that require full-time ethnographic research by the principal investigator. All budgets must include a short narrative justifying the requested support and linking it to the work plan. Further information on budget eligibility and proposal writing guidelines can be found on the Foundation's website (http://www.russellsage.org/about/whatwedo/howtoapply/).
Decisions on applications received by the March 15, 2008 deadline will be made by late June. Applications received by the August 15, 2008 deadline will be made by late November. All Russell Sage grantees are obligated to provide annual substantive and financial reports to the Foundation.
Please send completed proposals to the following address:
Dr. Aixa N. Cintron-Velez
Program Officer
Russell Sage Foundation
112 East 64th Street
New York, NY 10065
If you have questions about the application process, please email Jillian Weinberger, Program Assistant, at Jillian@rsage.org.