Multiculturalism and Immigration: A Contested Field in Cross-National Comparison

This article reviews cross-national research on multicultural policies in relation to immigrants in the main European and Anglo-Saxon immigrant-receiving countries. It compares the policies themselves and reviews studies that evaluate their outcomes. The size of immigrant populations as well as their composition in terms of countries of origin, religion, and human capital are key to understanding why multiculturalism has fallen further from grace in Europe than in the classical immigrant-receiving countries of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition, religious rights are identified as the main source of controversy regarding multicultural rights; that Muslims make up a larger proportion of immigrants to Europe explains in part the more critical evaluation that multicultural policies receive there. The reviewed studies reveal a mixed picture regarding outcomes of multicultural policies, with little effect on socioeconomic integration, some positive effects on political integration, and negative impacts on sociocultural integration.