Fourth International Metropolis Conference Washington, D.C. December 7-11, 1999

The Metropolis Project

The Metropolis Project creates opportunities for discussion among government decision-makers, researchers, and non-governmental agents on ways of improving policies and programs for effectively managing the impacts of immigration on life in our cities. Metropolis fosters exchanges that go beyond the stating of positions, beyond descriptions, and beyond advocacy. It provides unique opportunities for researchers, policy-makers, and other stake-holders who share a vision of improving society through collaboration and partnership to engage each other, to acknowledge problems openly and to work, unfettered, to solve them.

The Fourth Annual International Metropolis Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. from December 7-11, 1999 at the Georgetown University Conference Center. The conference will be sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in collaboration with the Metropolis International Secretariat housed at Citizenship and Immigration Canada in Ottawa. Building on the experiences of the first three conferences in Milan (1996), Copenhagen (1997) and Israel (1998), the Washington conference aims to further intensify discussions amongst senior policy-makers and leading academics in the fields of immigration and diversity through their participation in interactive plenary sessions and highly-focused, results-oriented workshops.

The themes of the Conference are:

• Building Community: Civil Society and Citizenship
• Neighbourhood Development: Housing and Labour Markets
• Governments and NGOs in Partnership

Who should attend:

The conference should be attended by researchers, policy-makers, and stakeholders working in the fields of immigration and diversity. It will provide a unique setting for stakeholders to engage each other, and will create opportunities for comparative international research and sustained expert discussion leading to the development of policies that better meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities presented by migration and the diversity that it produces.

Registration Fees:

Registration fees include all breakfasts, lunches, two dinners (including the gala event on December 8), and admission to plenaries and workshops; prices are in U.S. dollars.

Registration forms are available on this website or from the conference organizers (contact Yasmin Santiago at the International Migration Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, fax: (202) 332-0945, E-mail metropolis@ceip.org).

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1999

Transnationalism is one of the most significant analytical concepts to emerge in migration studies in recent years and it is spawning a vibrant new field of academic research. Speakers in this session will discuss the phenomenon of transnationalism and its implications for our societies and for policy regarding the global economy, culture, citizenship, and integration.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1999

This session is intended to underline the twin goals that drive Metropolis: (a) to influence a set of public policy issues that are critical to the well-being of our cities and their residents; and (b) to engage the best minds in the world to produce social science research from which effective policy proposals can be extracted.

Released in October 1999, this is the most comprehensive report the Census Bureau has developed on a wide range of geographic, demographic, social, economic and housing characteristics for the foreign-born population of the United States. Providing both historical and current data, the report is nothing less than a story of U.S. immigration in the 20^th century. The report is accompanied by 400 pages of detailed tables, some of them containing data on three generations of the foreign-born population.

Immigration has major implications for the management of cities, including the provision of social services such as heath and education, the social well-being of neighborhoods, employment, public safety, transportation, and even environmental protection. The panel will address the profound impact that migration has on city life and the challenges and opportunities that it poses for managing "global cities." It will also present examples of effective ways of meeting some of these challenges.

Free Evening

The interests of Metropolis lie in managing long term migration and its impacts. Helping immigrants to settle, ensuring that they are housed, that adults are employed, and that their children are enrolled in schools so that they can be the critical citizen-workers of the future is only part of a much bigger picture. The ultimate challenge is to build cohesive societies by encouraging immigrants and their children to become full, active members of their communities and the societies into which they are entering.

Governments now widely accept the proposition that effective policy development cannot take place without engaging front line representatives of the affected people. Similarly, social scientists are coming to believe that, in many instances, research requires active participation by the people being studied and, in fact, ethical considerations often demand it. In both cases, non-governmental organizations play a crucial role in bridging cultures and linking communities of interest.

Workshops

As at previous International Conferences, the workshops will run concurrently; that is, there will be approximately 15 held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively. As only those who have registered for a workshop will be guaranteed seating, we encourage you to indicate your preferences on the conference registration form (available from the conference organizers by e-mailing Metropolis@ceip.org or on the Metropolis website www.international.metropolis.net).

The success of workshops depends on the contributions and active participation of interested policy-makers, academics, and NGO workers. We encourage those who wish to participate in or present at a specific workshop to contact the workshop organizers directly; their e-mail addresses are included for this purpose.

(1) Barriers to Employment Faced by Immigrants: An Inventory of Existing Barriers (2 parts)

Part 1 - afternoon of Thursday, December 9, 1999
Part 2 - afternoon of Friday, December 10, 1999

The October 1998 Thematic Seminar in Montreal on obstacles to employment, and the workshop at the Third International Metropolis Conference on the same theme, confirmed the need for reflecting at the international level about this issue, and the need to shed new light through pooling of research in the domain and through a better understanding of the interventions advocated by different states in order to counter them.

The participants at the workshop in Israel agreed that there was a need to establish an exchange network in connection with this theme. The proposed workshop seeks to make the project known, to learn about developments over the course of 1999, and on the basis of the existing state of affairs, to study the possibilities of broadening the exchange network to include all Metropolis member countries. It would also be useful to discuss the formulation of research agendas with regard to shared thematics to be explored in this domain.

PART 2
The second session seeks to develop a better understanding of the interventions advocated by different States. It will allow for determining the possibility of establishing an international watchdog of hiring practices and the professional mobility of immigrants. A watchdog of this kind would permit improved understanding of the approaches developed in various countries, better circulation of information c oncerning the range of existing programs, and a better understanding of the real-world experiences of existing measures.

Discussion points should include, among other things, improvements to the existing instrument, and the possibilities for broadening the network in light of interests expressed and shared thematics meriting further exploration.

(2) Role of NGOs in Community Health Care Services for Immigrants and Refugees

This workshop will examine the role of NGOs in the delivery of community health care services to immigrants and refugees. Health care services in many countries are facing significant challenges as a result of the linguistic and cultural diversity of their clients. The unique health problems of new immigrants also present challenges to resident health care systems. This has both policy and service delivery implications. Some of the specific examples for discussion will include access and equity in health services, cultural interpretation in health care settings, the special case of tuberculosis, challenges in delivering mental health, dental and oral health to a diverse population. This workshop will also discuss the needs, challenges and benefits on the value of collaboration among NGOs, policy makers and researchers in the community health care system for immigrants and refugees.

Workshop Summary

(3) The Plural City: Emerging Forms of Belonging

This workshop is intended to question some common and important notions in much work about the plural city (this designation simply referring to the emerging pluri-ethnic Metropolitan landscape). Both scholarly work and policies are in large measure founded on ideas about 'forms of belonging' which are open to fundamental challenges. This workshop would deal with both the problems in present formulations of forms of belonging, and also point to attempts to re-conceptualize forms of belonging, these reconceptualizations then serving better to reflect fundamental processes in the plural city.

• how the relationship between place and community is treated;
• how the (often taken-for-granted) notion that permanent and situated face-to-face-relations constitute a high degree/the highest degree of authenticity and as such are of special significance;
• the scrutinization of policies, urban but also national, which build on these notions, and their role in creating both an opportunity structure which generates that which it was supposed to reflect (such as, possibly, ethnic cohesiveness, etc.), as well as in so doing also generate divisiveness and potentially conflict.

(4) The Social Integration of Immigrant Students: A Comparison of Models and Approaches

(5) Divided Cities: Best Practices for the Social Inclusion of Ethnic Minorities in Local Communities

The main objective of this workshop is to exchange comparative practical knowledge, as well as to discuss associated analytical models and theories on "best practices" regarding policy initiatives on local urban development, modes of local multicultural citizenship and multiethnic inclusion. Communication and exchange of policy-related experiences and new perspectives on social inclusion through the agency of local participatory frameworks constituted by local politicians, municipal policy-makers, local enterprises and both collective and individual initiatives of local citizens, are relevant aspects of policy-development and natural components of this workshop.

The workshop is expected to include researchers from the Social Sciences and Humanities, as well as politicians, municipal policy-makers and other urban "stakeholders" (including representatives of NGOs and ethnic associations) from several cities in different countries. Presentations and discussions will focus on the communication of experiences of "best practices" regarding policy initiatives in different cities and within local communities.

Background elements for this workshop are, in part, the National Metropolis Conference, "Divided Cities and Strategies for Undivided Cities" held in Gothenburg in May 1998, which continued through the Swedish MOST-MPMC-project "Co-operation for Multiethnic Inclusion" which is aimed to follow different forms of participation that local i nitiatives for social inclusion and multi-cultural community integration give rise to. Since 1997, the project has pursued a productive co-operation among researchers, policy makers, civil servants and non governmental organizations.

(6) Regularising Undocumented Immigrants: Goals and Outcomes of Amnesties

afternoon of Friday, December 10, 1999

Undocumented immigration as well as mass amnesties mark the short history of new receiving countries in South European (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece). But regularising undocumented migrants concerns Europe's traditional receiving countries, too (France and even Germany). Legalisation drives occurred also in the United States. Many cases should be cross-analysed for the first time. As undocumented immigration concerns an increasing number of countries, controls on borders and amnesties are usually considered the only way to face that phenomenon. Researchers and policy-makers must ask, however, whether these means are really able to get the scheduled aims.

The comparative analysis should focus on:

• the political debate before the legalisation: which connection (if any) between governmental policies and lobbies (both pro and against migrants)?
• the entitlements for applications and the socio-economic situations both of the receiving country and of the immigrant population;
• the impact in reducing undocumented immigration as well as migrants' irregular employment, both on short a nd long term.

Stressing both the positive and the negative sides of every different legalisation campaign could suggest guidelines to maximise the former and minimise the latter.

(7) The Impact of Diversity in Large Cities: Discrimination in the Media

This workshop will explore the role that media depictions of immigrants play in the formulation of public opinion, especially during times of economic and other instability. Participants will produce guidelines to inform future actions aimed at integrating immigrants.

(8) Policies of General Integration, Integration or Non-integration

Goals of the Workshop:
The main goal is to search for similarities and dissimilarities, successes and failures between countries on the issue of general integration policy, target group policy and non-integration policy for certain target groups. This will be illustrated by actual field practices.

The main questions to be answered are:

• Are general integration policy and target group policy two different methods to reach the same goal (the full participation of all immigrants) or - on the contrary - do they lead to different outcomes?
• Can we speak about an evolution in the last three decades on thinking about integration policy?
• What migration policy trends can we expect in the near future?
• Can we justify a policy in which immigrants are not pressured to integrate in the host society and in fact are stimulated to participate mainly in their own community? We will examine the example of elderly immigrants. The Hague will present a case of community housing for elderly people.

(9) The Integration of First and Second Generation Immigrants into the Educational System: The Interaction Between Research and Policy

By using recent studies and international comparisons that can inform integration policy in the education system, this workshop will identify best practices for practical policy-research collaboration in decision-making. The goal is to make research on the integration of immigrant youth into the educational system more useful to policy-makers and educators working in this area.

(10) The Labour Market Experiences of Refugees

The primary goal of this workshop is to identify ways in which refugees can be better integrated into the labour markets of their countries of destination. This subject is of ongoing global importance, but it is all the more salient at present because of the Kosovo situation. As refugee-receiving countries anticipate increased numbers of newcomers, they must also be concerned with their successful economic integration. Significant adjustments are required, not only on the part of the refugees themselves, but also from the communities into which they attempt to integrate.

This workshop addresses gendered and comparative labour market outcomes for refugees of different racial origins in different countries. For example, what factors facilitate or impede the economic integration of refugees? How do refugees fair in terms of occupational attainment and wages? What are their experiences of unemployment and under-employment? How does previous educational attainment affect their integration? What mechanisms are in place to assess credentials and/or prior labour market experiences? What programs or settlement services are particularly effective with refugees?

Comparisons will be made of the strategies utilized by governments and agencies in four countries to facilitate refugee economic integration. The workshop includes representatives from two NGO's working directly with refugees in Britain and Israel. Researchers from Canada and the United States will address the labour market experiences in those countries, and a policy maker from Europe will be invited to respond to the recommendations made for improved economic integration mechanisms directed at both refugees and receiving communities.

(11) Teacher Education for Working with Immigrant Families and Children: Implications of Current Research

The goals of the workshop are:

• to make significant links between research and policy in the field of teacher education, both in-service and pre-service;
• to identify the obstacles to such links and the most promising methods of preventing and eliminating them;
• to identify the most pressing needs for research from the viewpoints of academic, community, and policy-maker participants;
• to form partnerships for comparative international research projects, with a specific view to identifying evaluators of best practices and policies;
• to solidify the links begun among some of the presenters, and enable these links to become formative of future Metropolis research partnerships;
• to serve as a springboard for discussions toward a shared research agenda at the 4th National Metropolis Conference in Toronto in March 2000.

The discussion will include the families of immigrant children as well as the children and their teachers.

(12) The Impact of Social and Physical Environments on the Health of Migrants

Health is a fundamental component of population movement, integration and resettlement. The real or perceived health characteristics of migrant or mobile populations can affect how receiving societies meet migrants' needs, influence their social integration, and affect their capacity to contribute to the communities that receive them.

Two important health determinants for migrants are the social and physical environments in which they live before they move, during the migratory journey and after migration. This workshop will examine some of the major health effects related to these determinants.

Social environments are defined as the array of values and norms of a society, and can include such things as social stability, recognition of diversify, safety, good working relationships, and cohesive communities. Physical environments are defined as physical factors in the natural environment and the human-built environment such as air quality, water quality, housing, workplace safety, community and road design, etc.

Workshop goals are increased awareness of the impact of these factors on the health of migrants, information sharing and network building in the area of migration health. Presentations will reflect a balance between the policy and research communities.

(13) Economic Restructuring and Migrants

The economies of advanced industrial countries have been undergoing major changes: the declining importance of manufacturing as a source of job growth; the expansion of information based and service industries; the shifting of labour-intensive production to low cost regions; the intensification of multilateral economic exchanges; and the enlargement of a global market and economy. How do these changes affect the life chances of immigrants in receiving societies? What kind of immigrants are more likely to be economically successful in the emerging global economic culture and structure? What kind of immigration policy would allow receiving countries to best benefit from the human and cultural capital of immigrants in such a changing economy? Presenters will consider the impact of changing economic structure of receiving societies on immigration and immigration policies.

(14) Vocational Rehabilitation for Immigrants in Urban Centers

The goal is to share current research data and information on successful professional integration of immigrants in urban centers of host countries. The discussion among researchers, policy makers and representatives of NGOs will cover the important issue of the replication of these programs in different countries.

• "Job Club" - program for assisting new immigrants to get acquainted with the Israeli labor market, training them in job-hunting skills, business communication, etc;
• Programs of support for immigrant specialists by their veteran colleagues (ACE in New York, USA; MAAMAD in Jerusalem, Israel);
• Support for Business Initiatives program working through the network of town units providing financial support and consulting on the starting and managing a small business in Israel;
• "Greenhouses" -program providing employment for immigrant scientists in the existing structures in order to assist new arrivals to integrate into the Israeli scientific, industrial and business environment.

The actual cases to be discussed in the workshop, are very important for decision making and planning policy of professional integration of immigrants.

Both sides will gain from above programs: immigrants enjoying professional and social success, and host countries whose economy will benefit from the infusion of qualified working force into their labor market.

Many of the above programs can be considered for adaptation in urban centers of different host countries. This issue calls for inevitable cross-cultural comparison - comparative research. The participants in the workshop will present updated data from recent social research and comparative analyses of the situation regarding professional integration of immigrants in urban centers of different countries.

(15) Citizenship/Civic Education and Identity

• living and learning citizenship;
• constructing self in a new context;
• identity and citizenship as the same social and educational crisis;
• and identity, alterity, spatiality and citizenship distinguished and challenged.

Changing immigration and population patterns have led to policy-oriented and academic research into a range of diversity related issues, including research and policy development in the administration of justice in countries around the world. This workshop will provide an opportunity for international comparisons on the scope and remedies of key issues in the area of diversity and justice, including access, over-representation, and hate-motivated crime. These issues will be examined in two sessions that will include policy makers, academics, and NGOs from Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and participants from other countries where possible.

(17) International Study of Attitudes Towards Immigration and Settlement (ISATIS)

ISATIS is an international comparative study of the social climate that immigrants meet on arrival and during the settlement process. By "social climate" we mean the attitudes and values held by members of the larger society with respect to levels and kinds of immigrants they are willing to accept, the consequences they believe will result from immigration, and the value they place on their society being culturally diverse. This workshop follows an earlier one at the Israel conference, where a survey research instrument was discussed, along with results of a pilot study in Canada.

A revised survey research instrument will be presented at this 1999 workshop, followed by empirical results obtained in Portugal, Israel and Canada. Discussions aimed at further developing the survey, and creating an international network to participate in the project will complete the workshop.

The policy relevance of the project is clear. Foremost is that a hostile climate benefits no one: it is not only immigrants who adapt poorly when they face rejection, but backlash may be generated among members of the larger society, creating an even more negative climate for both the immigrants and their descendants. Second, knowledge about these attitudes and behaviours can be useful in designing public education programmes that seek to bring about attitude change; and the success of such programmes can be evaluated against this baseline information. Third, settlement services for immigrants can be developed based on knowledge about specific features of the group relationships that may be associated with negative attitudes. And fourth, policy decisions about immigration levels and selection criteria, and about the promotion of cultural diversity can also be made using such information. The overriding importance of such a study, however, resides in the fact that the success of any policy or programme depends upon the support of the general population, and its willingness to accept immigrants and the generations of people who follow them.

Officials involved in immigration and settlement policy have expressed interest in ISATIS, including those from Canada, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. We hope to expand the network to include other countries, especially Australia, New Zealand and the USA. International comparisons will be carried out in order to discern variations (similarities and differences) in social climate in immigrant-receiving countries. Most important will be the search for what may be common to these attitudes and values, so that fundamental programmes can be initiated that will promote the development of a positive social climate for immigration and settlement.

(18) Trade Agreements and Migration

Globalization coupled with economic and social change (e.g. recession, political instability, environmental and economic crises) has led to a growing movement of migrant workers, both high skill and low skill.

As a result, there are pressures on governments to facilitate entry of these workers. Developed countries are in need of high skill workers from other countries (both developed and developing) to fill critical skill shortages in key areas such as information technology. Developing countries are pressuring developed countries to open their economies to low-skill workers who can provide much-needed income, in the form of remittances, to the home country.

This growing movement of people has implications for labour markets in developed economies. Our workshop is designed to look at these issues on the eve of the next GATS negotiations that begin in early 2000. The workshop will provide an ideal venue for sharing international experiences related to the mobility of persons under trade agreements and to build international networks around temporary foreign worker issues.

• provide background information on several trade agreements (e.g. NAFTA, GATS) and their mobility provisions
• further our understanding of different national experiences of how mobility provisions in trade agreements might address skills gaps and other human resource issues (e.g. labour shortages)
• identify possible best practice mobility provisions in trade agreements prior to the next of GATS negotiations gets underway
• provide a forum to debate critical issues surrounding high and low skill movements

The workshop is designed to encourage discussion among policy makers and researchers. For example, researchers will prepare papers which will be available prior to the conference on RIIM's website and oral presentations will be made by policy makers acting as discussants for each paper. Time for open discussion among all participants, including NGOs, will be allotted in each session.

(19) Trafficking in Women: Balancing Human Rights and Criminal Justice Issues

Goal: To present and discuss options for developing policy frameworks that balance human rights and criminal justice responses to the trafficking of women; ro learn from experiences in other countries.

Relevance: Trafficking in human beings has increased throughout the world in recent years, owing to globalization of economies and expansion of organized crime activity ranging from firearms and drugs to trafficking in humans. Conservative estimates indicate that 700,000 to 1,000,000 women are trafficked globally each year. The UN Convention on Transnational Crime, and its supplemental Protocol on Trafficking in Women and Children will be concluded in the year 2000. The Protocol will likely require signatory states to specifically criminalize trafficking.

Topics: How is trafficking defined? How is trafficking practiced? What are the current legal and human rights responses to trafficking? What policies and legislation exist and/or are needed to support the human rights of women who are trafficked and to prosecute traffickers?

(20) Territory and Ethnic Conflict in Global Cities

(21) Conjugal Violence and Ethno-Racial Minorities: Enhancing Policy and Practice Initiatives

This workshop will engage in a critical examination of current approaches to conjugal violence in relation to ethno-racial minority women and their families. Its principal aim is to promote a discussion on the following issues:

• the relevance of cross-cultural research on conjugal violence vis-à-vis theory, practice, programme development and policy initiatives;
• the influence of stereotypes regarding notions of "culture", "ethnicity" and "race" and the effect this influence has had on research and policy,
• the merits of inter-sectional approaches that consider conjugal violence within a nexus of social power relations versus unidimensional approaches that assume more linear causal relationships,
• the need to better appreciate that the cultural norms governing conjugal violence in ethno-racial minorities may differ significantly from those of mainstream culture.

The exploration of these issues is intended to lead to a critical examination of the impact current policies addressing conjugal violence has had within the ethno-cultural communities.

(22) Global Spaces in Urban Places: The Roots of Substantive Citizenship

This workshop will explore the role of public space and its impact on substantive citizenship in an age of globalization. Participants will examine the means by which immigrants and minority communities lay claim to public space, make use of that space, and what role(s) that plays in the development of substantive citizenship. Further, the role of government in providing and regulating public space and the resulting impact(s) on the participation of immigrant and minority communities in major urban centres will be examined.

The workshop will be divided into two distinct sections to permit a clear progression from global and theoretical context, to specified urban cases, and concluding with synthesis and policy implications. Multimedia presentations of six case studies will be presented from around the world focusing on different examples of the role of public space in substantive citizenship. Examples will include places of worship, commercial sites, residential space, athletic facilities, and other municipal spaces.

(23) Voluntarism, Diversity and Immigration

One of the most understudied dimensions of social integration is the participation of immigrants and minority groups in voluntary organizations. With the emergence of transnational ethnic identities, and multiple national loyalties, this field of study is increasingly important. In addition, with increased devolution of responsibility by governments, from a policy perspective it is necessary to know whether the volunteer base will, in fact, be there to assume the handed down responsibilities.

To address social integration and other policy issues, this workshop will focus on three major research s ub-areas surrounding voluntarism and integration: charitable giving, membership in voluntary organizations and voluntarism among immigrants and minority communities. While all sectors of society will be considered, a specific emphasis on youth will run throughout the workshop.

• The Canadian Situation
• The United States Situation
• The United Kingdom Situation

Part 2
Each of these sessions will start with a 20 minute presentation by a chair, tying together some of the themes drawn from the five papers presented in part 1. Discussions about potential collaborative projects and future directions will occupy the rest of the sessions.

• Charitable Donations: "Patterns of Charitable Donations by Immigrant Status and Ethnicity in Canada"
• Memberships in Voluntary Associations: "Ethnicity and Organizational Involvement"
• Volunteering

(24) Reconciliation and Restorative Justice: Lessons for Multiculturalism

This workshop will examine the extent to which reconciliation and restorative justice models can inform multicultural approaches to diversity. Theoretical frameworks will be presented to establish how these models can interact with the discourse around multiculturalism. Subsequently, a focus on relationships and dialogues will be drawn out in case studies from Canada, the United States, South Africa, and Argentina. Based on these case studies, participants will work towards a model designed to inform debate around immigration fuelled diversity.

(25) The Role of NGO Partnerships in Delivering Services to Immigrants

The workshop will include an international representation of researchers, including community-based researchers and practitioners, policy-makers from national regional, municipal levels of government and members of NGOs, all with expertise in the topic under discussion. The aim of the workshop will be to identify practical and cost-effective partnership initiatives, and to highlight that NGO involvement improves the delivery of services and by extension, the settlement, integration and well-being of immigrants and refugees.

(26) Social Cohesion and Social Segmentation

What impacts have increasingly diverse and segmented populations had on the development of knowledge-based economies and the social cohesion of societies? For example, to what extent are minorities filling jobs that majority members do not want; what does this tell us about social and economic barriers minorities may face; and to what degree could these developments impede a socially cohesive society? Participants will discuss the degree to which policy can act to create more cohesive societies and the directions such policies should take.

(27) New Cities of Immigration

This workshop will highlight metropolitan areas, like Washington DC, that have experienced rapid new growth in their immigrant populations. Each presenter will (1) describe the origins and development of migration to their city of study and give a demographic profile of the area (including statistics on population size, ethnic composition, rates of immigration, and population growth). Presenters may choose to address how differences between refugees and immigrants play a role in new cities of immigration. ( 2) discuss the most pressing issues faced by their city as a result of immigration and (3) describe how governments and NGOs are or are not meeting these priorities.

By bringing together policy makers, researchers, and community workers from around the world, we hope to open a broader, comparative discussion on the emerging issues within new cities of immigration. Discussing the issues, problems and successes of immigrants and resident communities within this context is especially important for policymakers, given the particular need for programs and initiatives to address issues as they emerge. Specific attention will be paid to best practices.

(28) The Resettlement Experience of Immigrant and Refugee Children

The experience of adapting to a new society poses challenges for immigrant and refugee children. The challenges include reconciling their history and their present in order to forge an identity, coping with discrimination, entering and dealing with the school system, and navigating through the sometimes conflicting values they learn at home and those they confront in the larger society. Challenge may create health and mental health risk on the one hand and opportunity on the other. Appropriate response to their unique needs will help immigrant children realize their potential. The workshop aims to identify a research agenda that will provide directions for policies related to the resettlement of immigrant children and youth, as well as guidelines for program development.

(29) A Needs-based Approach to Settlement Services

The goal of this workshop is to initiate discussions on appropriate models of settlement service delivery. The workshop will specifically address the shift from a model primarily concerned with the culture of newcomer clients to a model that emphasizes the needs of newcomer clients in settlement service delivery.

The policy implications of the discussions: how do the existing policies such as the Multiculturalism policy impact on the delivery of settlement services? Do we need a settlement policy? Presenters will also examine the policy of settlement service funding structure in Canada.

(30) Language Policy and Immigration

(31) Gender and Skilled Migration

This workshop will examine international research and policy about gender and skilled migration by reviewing the state of current research in Canada, the United States, Australia, and Great Britain and identifying research gaps of interest to policy makers and academic researchers. Historically, skilled female migrants have spearheaded certain population movements, for example, Caribbean nurses migrating to Canada and the United States. However, skilled female migrants are often overlooked in contemporary research and policy analysis. The extent to which current policies will attract skilled women is unknown. Moreover, there is little research examining the settlement experiences of women who enter with skilled male principal applicants even though women the women are often well educated, experienced, and highly skilled workers. The migration of skilled women is of growing concern for three reasons. First, women are likely to encounter different challenges as skilled migrants than their male counterparts. More information about their migration and settlement experiences is needed to determine the extent and significance of gender differences. Secondly, the current omission of women from the literature about skilled migration contributes to underestimating the extent to which women who are skilled migrants contribute to the economies of their countries of settlement. Finally, there is growing evidence that economic integration of immigrants has been more difficult since 1980, despite the selection of increasing numbers of highly skilled applicants. A comprehensive examination of the experiences and contributions of skilled female migrants is needed to assess current settlement policies that often assume migrant women are poorly educated and less skilled.

(32) Welcome Policy

What ethical considerations motivate the act of welcoming and how are these translated into welcome policy and practice? What actors are involved in defining welcome policies and what challenges do they face? What impact does location and timing have on welcoming? What role does the learning of the language and culture of the host country play in the immigrant experience?

(33) Housing and Neighbourhood Conditions of Immigrants: Progress and Constraints
(A) Homeownership Attainment Patterns Across Immigrant Groups
afternoon of Thursday, December 9, 1999
(B) Housing and Neighbourhood Conditions and Choices of Immigrants
afternoon of Friday, December 10, 1999

Two sessions comprising four units will examine the housing and neighborhood conditions and housing market progress of immigrants. The sessions will also explore housing market barriers faced by immigrants and responses of the housing industry to growing market diversity.

Workshop participants will be drawn primarily from the ranks of academic researchers, although presenters and discussants will also include representatives of government and NGOs. The sessions will focus on North American research but will also include overseas participants to the extent possible.

(34) Second Generation Prospects

Immigration's most lasting legacy may take the form of the "second generation," a population that we can categorize as consisting of those children of foreign-born parents, either born in the host society or born abroad, but brought to the host society at a very young age. In the United States, social science thinking about the second generation has begun with a decidedly pessimistic inflection, as the leading students have offered a prediction of "segmented assimilation," in which many immigrant offspring move ahead, through a variety of routes, but a sizeable segment stands at risk of a slide into the "underclass". By logical extension, the hypothesis of "segmented assimilation" should hold for most immigrant receiving countries, as it emphasizes structural features common to advanced economies. This panel will advance this comparative discussion by focusing on second generation fates in the United States, Canada, and other countries.

(35) Ethnic Economies, Enclaves and Niches

Conventional thinking about immigrant adaptation emphasized assimilation, which it conceptualized as a process whereby newcomers moved ahead by dispersing from the occupational and residential clusters that immigrants established upon settlement. But this older conceptualization stands at variance with newer conceptualizations of migration, and the attendant emphasis on social capital, understood as the web of ties that link immigrants to one another, shape and constrain their ability to pursue opportunity and creates information fields and mobility channels that structure the fabric of ethnic life in durable and significant ways. This panel seeks to examine the ways in which the social structure of ethnic communities and populations influence their economic activities, through a focus on those configurations alternatively known as "ethnic economies," "ethnic enclaves," and "ethnic niches."

(36) Immigrants in an Era of Inequality

Post-war immigration to the advanced societies began at the tail end of a period of historically high equality. Since then, the distribution of wealth and income has shifted in ways that make many immigrant-receiving societies far more unequal than they were before. For immigrants, that change carries significant peril: real wages among less skilled workers of all ethnic stripes have taken a very sharp hit over the past two decades. Put somewhat differently, less skilled immigrants are striving to make it in a labor market, over-supplied with poorly educated workers, and in which the terms of compensation have shifted sharply against the less-skilled. This panel seeks to assess changes in the progress of immigrants in light of the new forms of inequality that have emerged over the past 20 years.

(37) Impacting policy: Best practices among the non-governmental sector

This workshop will bring together leading, non-governmental activists in the United States and Canada to discuss the manner in which they, and their organizations, participate in the public policy process and influence policies on immigration and integration. The workshop should be viewed as a conversation among practitioners. Agencies wishing to enhance their ability to interact and to influence government decision-making will benefit from this forum.

e-mail: Metropolis@ceip.org

International Migration Policy Program

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20036

contact: Yasmin Santiago

ph: (202) 939-2278

fax: (202) 332-0945

yasmin@ceip.org

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Last updated : 11/04/99