------  Project Launch 10th September 2020  ------

Life at the Frontier: Social mobility, segregation and integration

Join us for our launch webinar at 14.30pm (BST) on 10th September 2020

Registration: Attendance is free. Register here.

Chair: Helen Grady, Senior Journalist at BBC Radio 4

Speakers: Prof Gwilym Pryce (University of Sheffield), Prof Liv Osland (Western Norway University of Applied Sciences), Prof Urban Lindgren (Umea University) and Rt Hon. Professor Lord David Blunkett. 

Synopsis: Successful integration entails migrants being able to achieve “outcomes within employment, housing, education, health etc. which are equivalent to those achieved within the wider host communities” (UK Home Office report, 2004). However, for migrants to achieve this vision of integration, they need to be socially mobile: able to progress in terms of educational achievement and employment. We propose a research agenda that develops measures of integration that capture spatial and dynamic drivers of integration. With this renewed vision for integration in mind, we propose a set of empirical methods for refocusing integration policy and debate. In so doing, we discuss an important, yet overlooked, form of segregation: ‘social frontiers’ - sharp spatial transitions between adjoining communities. These cliff edges in the social landscape limit contact between groups and foster territorial behaviour.  We argue that the existence of social frontiers has the potential to limit the wellbeing and social mobility of migrants and other minority groups.