Changing Values through Immigration?

Multiculturalism – this year’s congress theme – attributes equal value to different ethnic cultures that coexist in a society, celebrating not only the protection of ‘traditional’ cultures, but also the emergence of new hybrid cultures. However, scapegoating and prejudices often remain in multi-ethnic societies. In particular, the European context (including Germany) is marked by tensions as a consequence of increasing immigration, and a lack of integration seems to remain as social problem. The idea of multiculturalism has therefore been challenged in recent years. In Germany, the recent political and public discourse is marked by a discussion about a German “Leitkultur” and the boundaries of (cultural and social) integration. Among others, a fear of a decline of so-called core German values seems to have gained impetus with the increased number of refugees (see also Boehnke, Deutsch & Boehnke, 2016). Against this background, our study aims to investigate the relationship between immigration to Germany and societal value change. The focus is on the core values of German culture. On the basis of representative survey data of the German population since the German Unification in 1990, we a) identify the core values of the German society, b) describe their change over the past 28 years, and c) investigate to what extent these changes in value preferences are a consequence of immigration.