Week 1
An Introduction to the Assimilation Paradigm
Soci—231
Let’s Get Started–
September 1st
First Order of Business
Welcome to Soci—231.
Let’s begin with some introductions.
I’ll start.
My Journey
The Broad View
My Journey
Places Defined By International Migration
My Research
Personal Culture of Immigrant-Origin People
Figure 8 from Karim (2024a)
My Research
Personal Culture of Immigrant-Origin People
Adaptation of results from Karim (2024b)
My Research
Exclusionary Politics
Figure 1 from Soehl and Karim (2021)
My Research
Exclusionary Politics
My Research
Political Conflict
Figure 4 from Broćić and Karim (2026)
My Research
Political Conflict
Preliminary results from Karim, Broćić and Lukk (2026)
Now, It’s Your Turn
Student Introductions
The First Group Exercise
Think about the following questions:
A Few Simple Questions
What’s your name? Your major(s)?
What does cultural assimilation mean to you?
Do you think cultural assimilation is a “good thing” or a “bad thing?
What does sociology mean to you?
After you’ve come up with some answers, discuss them with a colleague seated near you.
Our Class
The Syllabus
The Syllabus
Office Hours
Fridays, 12:30 to 2:30 PM in Morgan Hall, Room 306
Office Hours
Appointment Policy
All meetings, even during office hours, must be scheduled in
advance via Google Calendar.
Readings
Course Readings
All readings can be accessed via our eReserves on Moodle.
Course Structure
The course can be partitioned into
three distinct parts.
Course Structure
Part I of the course will provide theoretical foundations. More specifically, we will explore classical assimilation theory and its successors in sociology and cognate fields—and in doing so, gain a sense of what assimilation theory means and how the basic assumptions of the paradigm have evolved with time.
Course Structure
Part II should add some life and vividness to these theoretical abstractions. Concretely, we will go through a series of case studies and analyze whether different perspectives on assimilation “fit the data” or help us understand (i) the lived experiences of immigrant-origin populations in America; and (ii) political debates about the cultural incorporation of immigrant-origin people in the United States and beyond.
Course Structure
Part III coincides with the final weeks of class and will feature presentations related to term papers, marking the end of the fall semester.
Evaluations
| Task | Weight | Due | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Response Memos | 10% | Mondays at 8:00 PMFrom Week 3 | |
On a weekly basis, students will engage with—and respond to—questions posed on our Moodle Discussion Board. Responses must be between 250–400 words, or a penalty will be applied.
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| Participation | 20% | Throughout the Term | |
Students must actively participate in class discussions by raising their hand to share their thoughts or by meaningfully contributing to small group conversations.
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| Midterm Exam | 25% | During Week 8 | |
Students will complete a midterm exam split across two sessions. The first will feature a series of multiple-choice questions, the second a set of short-answer questions. Taken together, the exam will assess students’ grasp of the material covered in Part I of the course.
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| Final Paper Proposal | 5% | Fri 20 Nov8:00 PM | |
Students are required to submit a term paper on a topic of their choice, subject to my approval as the course instructor. Students must meet with me during office hours to discuss their initial ideas for the paper. Topics must be related to the cultural incorporation of immigrants and their descendants in any part of the world. To finalize the approval process, students must submit a brief (1–2 page) proposal that outlines their selected topic, explains its relevance to the course, and highlights their provisional arguments.
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| Final Paper Presentation | 10% | During Part III | |
Students will deliver a 5–7-minute presentation based on, or informed by, their term paper. Guidelines detailing my basic expectations will be uploaded in the coming months.
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| Final Paper | 30% | Mon 14 Dec · commentsFri 18 Dec · hard | |
As noted, your term paper must grapple with the cultural incorporation of immigrant-origin people and be approved by me, the course instructor. Papers should be 8–12 pages long, double-spaced, and written in 12-point font. Both deadlines are at 8:00 PM. Other expectations will be posted later in the semester.
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| Total | 100% | ||
Evaluations
Guidelines for Major Assignments
Guidelines for key deliverables will be gradually uploaded online
as deadlines come into focus.
Norms, Rules, Regulations & More
Accessibility and Accommodations
If you require accommodations, please contact Student Accessibility Services as soon as possible and submit an application via the AIM portal. More generally, if you have any suggestions about how this class can be more accessible and inclusive, please let me know via e-mail or during office hours.
Norms, Rules, Regulations & More
Class Policies
Please review the Amherst College Honor Code, which can be accessed here.
Violations of the Honor Code will be promptly reported to the Dean of Students. As Section 1.1 of the Honor Code indicates, plagiarism is a serious offense. In most cases, students who plagiarize the work of others will fail this class and may face additional disciplinary penalties. Moreover, as detailed in Sections 1.2 to 1.4 of the Honor Code, students must respect others in the classroom, including those whose views deviate from their own. Failure to do so will prompt disciplinary action.
Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools are proliferating. At colleges and universities, chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are increasingly used by students and researchers alike. This represents a profound ethical quandary, with some speculating that our reliance on AI will produce an epistemic crisis that deepens sectarian conflict, impoverishes democratic institutions, and accelerates environmental degradation. Others believe this view is naively alarmist—a kind of reactionary aversion to change that inevitably emerges in the fog of technological revolutions that destabilize our taken-for-granted assumptions about how the world works. I have my own opinions,1 and you are free to have yours.
Whatever your orientation towards AI, we must acknowledge that the floodgates have opened. GAI tools are everywhere and thus difficult to avoid. The College has even provided access to Gemini and Notebook LM to all students, faculty, and staff. Consequently, you are free to use ChatGPT and its analogues for class assignments, but you must cite the GAI you are using. Failure to do so is plagiarism.
To reiterate:
Generative AI Policy
If you use a GAI tool (like ChatGPT or Claude) and do not cite it, it is a form of plagiarism.
You are expected to attend each and every class. If you do not, you will lose points for participation. That said, I am aware that you are all human beings whose lives are often fraught with uncertainty. If something comes up, please let me know and I will do my best to be as accommodating as possible. Extended absences may, however, require additional documentation (e.g., note from a physician).
Provisionally, I have decided to allow students to use laptops and tablets in class. This is, however, highly conditional. If I observe students using their electronic devices for non-academic pursuits (e.g., shopping, consuming social media and so on), I will institute a sweeping ban on electronics.
Do not be the one to contravene our social contract.
On weekdays, I will respond to emails within two days. If I fail to meet this standard, please send me a follow-up message with a gentle reminder. On weekends2 and breaks, I will not respond to emails unless you have an emergency. If you do, please remember to include EMERGENCY in the subject line.
Assignments must be submitted on time. A late submission will result in a penalty of 5% for each day beyond the deadline. However, as noted, I am well aware that life can present unexpected challenges. If you anticipate missing a deadline or have an emergency, please let me know soon as you can. Extensions may be granted on a case-by-case basis.
Four Basic Expectations
Read carefully but efficiently.
This is not a research seminar. You do not have to read or scrutinize methods sections—unless that is of interest, of course.
Participate in class conversations. We’ll all learn more that way.
Have fun.
Cultural Assimilation:
The Long View
100+ Years of Assimilation Theory
This course will interrogate 100+ years of assimilation theory.
For now, let’s begin in the midcentury. Hirsch’s (1942) brief exposition raises a series of questions as timely today as they were over 80 years ago.
Hirsch’s Orienting Questions
Does assimilation mean interpenetration? Adjustment? Accommodation?
What is our unit of analysis? Specifically, is assimilation a property of social groups or individual social actors?
Does assimilation occur consciously or through unconscious channels?
What are the mechanisms driving the assimilatory process?
What are the downstream consequences of assimilation?
What is a “cultural group,” anyway?
Our First Excerpt
In short, assimilation refers to not one process, but to a number of processes involved in becoming a community member. These processes differ infinitely, according to the nature of the particular community, of those who are to be assimilated, and various other factors.
(Hirsch 1942:37, EMPHASIS ADDED)
Sketching a Crude Conceptual Model–
September 3rd
Some Reminders
The Class Syllabus
Some Reminders
Office Hours
Some Reminders
Add/Drop
The “shopping period” will end on
Thursday, September 10th.
A Group Exercise
Conceptualizing Assimilation
A Tentative (and Confusing) Model
Click to Expand Image
Conceptualizing Assimilation
In groups of 3-4, try to draw concrete connections between Alba and Nee’s (2014) broad discussion of assimilation and the conceptual model introduced on the previous slide.
American Assimilation in the Early 21st Century
(Alba and Maggio 2022)
The Necessity of the Assimilation Lens?
Relative to Other Theoretical Perspectives
Race-focused theories, such as racial-formation and critical-race theories, have demonstrated their value in revealing racial inequality as a persistent feature of American society and in illuminating its linkages to slavery and conquest in the nation’s history and to the institutional mechanisms that maintain it in the present … A race lens produces a binary view of American society as divided between White people and “People of Color.” This view in turn implies a majority–minority future in which the current majority, White people, becomes a numerical minority because of demographic change.
(Alba and Maggio 2022:1, EMPHASIS ADDED)
The Necessity of the Assimilation Lens?
Relative to Other Theoretical Perspectives
In contrast, assimilation theory is attentive to social processes that weaken group boundaries and their social significance, at least for parts of groups … It holds that these boundary changes are associated with processes of social mobility for minorities that bring many of them into equal and socially more intimate contact with members of the dominant group. In principle, this holds even when racial boundaries are involved, although assimilation scholars generally recognize that the White/Black boundary has been stubbornly resistant to major change.
(Alba and Maggio 2022:1, EMPHASIS ADDED)
The Necessity of the Assimilation Lens?
Relative to Other Theoretical Perspectives
Some Evidence
Changes at the Top of the Hierarchy
Adaptation of Table 1 in Alba and Maggio (2022) — Top Quartile of Occupations
The Rise of “Mixed” Americans
Adaptation of Tables 2 and 3 in Alba and Maggio (2022) — Marriages in the Past Year, 2015-2019
Another Group Exercise
For and Against “Assimilation”
For the rest of class, get back into groups of 3–4 students. Drawing on your brief introduction to assimilation theory, discuss preliminary arguments for and against the paradigm. Which do you find more convincing at this early stage?
Enjoy the Weekend
References
Note: Scroll to access the entire bibliography
Footnotes
I happen to generally agree with what Andrew Heiss writes here, but lean more agnostic. As I will discuss in class, large language models have been deployed in some of my ongoing research projects.
Concretely, Friday at 5:00 PM to Monday at 8:00 AM.
