and Sweden regarding the origin of ethnic minorities and the history of their immigration.
As a legacy of its days as an imperial power, the United Kingdom experienced a large
inflow of immigrants from its ex-colonies, most notably from the Indian subcontinent and
the Caribbean, starting as early as the 1950s. Due to this early immigration, many of the
descendents of these groups are now third generation migrants. Moreover, as people from
the British Commonwealth, the immigrants were accustomed to expressing themselves in
English, the lingua franca in their countries of origin. This proficiency in English helped
them and their offspring to navigate the opportunities in British society. By contrast,
immigration to Germany and Sweden started a good decade later (later still in Sweden)
and originated from countries (Turkey, ex-Yugoslavia, Italy, more recently from Somalia,
Iran and Iraq) that historically had no specific cultural or linguistic links with the
receiving countries. As a result, immigrants and their descendents in these countries have
more difficulty than their British counterparts in gaining a refined command of the
dominant language.
With regard to the reception of immigrants by the receiving society, Germany
clearly set itself apart from the other two countries until quite recently. Until well into the
1990s Germany refused to consider itself as an immigration society committed to the
integration of immigrants and their offspring. The immigration from the late 1960s was
seen as a temporary phenomenon and it was expected that the immigrants concerned
(Gastarbeiter) would eventually return to their countries of origin. This attitude was
reflected in policy: immigrants and their children born in Germany were barred from
adopting German citizenship and the native language education provided for immigrant
children was designed to facilitate their eventual return to and re-integration in their
countries of origin. This posture changed dramatically however following the assumption
of power by the Red-Green coalition government in 1999. Naturalization policy was
brought in line with that of other West-European states and immigrants and their
offspring were finally accepted as full members of German society (Koopmans et al
2005). By contrast, Britain and Sweden have from the onset been more accepting of
immigrants and have consequently sought to promote their integration and participation
in the receiving society from early on. This historical difference is important as the
survey data used for this study was collected in 1999, i.e. before the reforms of the new