Integration Norms and Realities in Diverse Urban Neighborhoods in Germany: The impact of different cultural capital

The article presents results from the German part of an international research project, which studied from 2008 to 2011 the impact of ethnicity on the biographical prospects of urban youth in nine countries of the European Union, and places these findings in the wider framework of research on minority youths and the role of educational experiences in everyday processes of “minoritization”. The focus is set specifically on the ways in which hegemonic discourses of integration and prevalent (negative) assessments of different cultural capital actually “make the differences” and influence adolescents’ perceptions of integration, segregation, and their own societal membership in Germany.