The three chapters of my dissertation examine immigrant assimilation in the Canadian labour market. Through three levels of analysis, which are distinguished by the sample restrictions that are employed, I investigate immigrant labour force and job dynamics, immigrant propensity for self-employment, and immigrant wage assimilation, respectively. In the first chapter, I exploit recently-introduced immigrant identifiers in the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the longitudinal dimension of these data to compare the labor force and job dynamics of Canada's native-born and immigrant populations. I am particularly interested in the role of job, as opposed to worker, heterogeneity in driving immigrant wage disparities and in how the paths into and out of jobs of varying quality compares between immigrants and the native-born. The main finding is that the disparity in immigrant job quality, which does not appear to diminish with years since arrival, reflects a combination of relatively low transitions into high-wage jobs and high transitions out of these jobs. The former result appears about equally due to difficulties obtaining high-wage jobs directly out of unemployment and in using low-wage jobs as stepping-stones. I find little or no evidence, however, that immigrant jobseekers face barriers to low-wage jobs. We interpret these findings as emphasizing the empirical importance of the quintessential immigrant anecdote of a low-quality "survival job" becoming a "dead-end job". The second chapter analyzes immigrant choice of self-employment versus paid employment. Using the Canadian Census public use microdata files from 1981 to 2006, I update the Canadian literature on immigrant self-employment by examining changes in the likelihood of self-employment across arrival cohorts of immigrants and how self-employment rates evolve in the years following migration to Canada. This study finds that new immigrants, who arrived between 1996 and 2005, turned to self-employment at a faster rate than the earlier cohorts and that immigrants become increasingly likely to be self-employed as they spend more time in Canada. More important, I examine immigrant earnings outcomes relative to the native-born, instead of within, sectors and thus explore the extent to which a comparative advantage in self-employment, captured by the difference in potential earnings between the self- and paid-employment sectors, can explain the tremendous shift toward self-employment in the immigrant population. The results show that the earnings advantage between the self- and the paid-employment sectors accounts for the higher likelihood of self-employment for traditional immigrants in the years following migration. However, the potential earnings difference cannot explain the reason that non-traditional immigrants are more likely to be self-employed as they consistently lose an earnings advantage in the self-employment sector relative to the paid-employment sector. My paper suggests that immigrants may face barriers to accessing paid-employment, or immigrants are attracted to self-employment by non-monetary benefits. Lastly, in the third chapter, studies which estimate separate returns to foreign and host-country sources of human capital have burgeoned in the immigration literature in recent years. In estimating separate returns, analysts are typically forced to make strong assumptions about the timing and exogeneity of human capital investments. Using a particularly rich longitudinal Canadian data source, I consider to what extent the findings of the Canadian literature may be driven by biases arising from errors in measuring foreign and host-country sources of human capital and the endogeneity of post-migration schooling and work experience. The main finding is that the results of the current literature by and large do not appear to be driven by the assumptions needed to estimate separate returns using the standard data sources available.

The internet has revolutionized the way we socialize, and as a consequence the way to love. The new communication technologies have facilitated intercultural relationships. Nowadays family relations are one of the major factors in immigration to European countries. Family relations means persons who arrive as family dependents and in accordance with laws regulating family reunification. This thesis aims to apply the classical assimilation theory stated by Milton Gordon (1964), which formulates a series of assimilation stages through which an individual must pass in order to be completely assimilated. In accordance with this theory, marriage is the final phase for a newcomer to fully incorporate into the host society. Thus, based on this presumption and other contemporary theories, the present study has analysed how women who get involved in intercultural marriages based on internet meeting experience these assimilation stages and evaluated the resources used by respondents to incorporate themselves into Swedish society.The main goal of the study was to determine if jumping to the last stage of assimilation does assure the incorporation in the social or/and labour spheres and the findings demonstrate that even though husbands are a valuable resource for assimilation, several cultural issues in Swedish society make it difficult to assure success for the newcomers.On the other hand, Sweden is a country with a strong national sentiment and the assimilation of immigrants still is an important issue to deal with. The Swedish Integration Board has disappeared and major projects for integration have been left in the hands of the municipalities or the Migration Board, institutions that still do not know how to deal with this dilemma.

Sociological and demographic analyses of minority fertility in the United States have suggested that the processes of socioeconomic, cultural, marital, and structural assimilation will lead to convergence in fertility. So far, little research has used the assimilation approach to study the fertility of the minority populations of China, and also, no research has taken both individual-level and group-level characteristics as predictors. Using micro-data from the One Percent 1990 Census of China, this dissertation performs multilevel analyses, hierarchical generalized linear modeling, to examine the effects of assimilation and the one-child policy at both the individual level and the group level on minority women's fertility. Several patterns are found in the multilevel analyses. First, the contextual characteristics of minority groups have strong correlations with fertility across thirty major minority groups in China. It suggests that community power and subculture have strong influences on women's decisions regarding their number of children. Second, the effect of the one-child policy is positive and highly significant on minority women's fertility. However, the strong policy effect does not cover the effect of assimilation. After controlling for policy, the impact of all the assimilation predictors, at both the individual and group level, still remains statistically significant. At the individual level, minority women's educational level, occupational status, status of intermarriage, and migration status have significant and positive impacts on their fertility. At the group level, the levels of minority groups' residential segregation, educational segregation, illiteracy, intermarriage rate, and their Moslem group culture have significant and negative impacts on individual women's fertility. Third, several cross-level interactions in the rural models are not consistent with the complete models, which suggests that some indirect effects of assimilation on minority fertility may come from the urban minorities. Finally, in addition to the direct impacts of socioeconomic, marital, and cultural assimilation on minority fertility, several cross-level interactions are significant and indirectly affect women's fertility. Findings reported in this dissertation indicate a successful integration of individual and contextual variables in analyses of minority fertility. The results contribute to the understanding of the assimilation impacts on minority fertility in China.

<p>Denna uppsats syftar till att tydliggöra de mediala diskurser som finns om integration och utanförskap i tidningsartiklar. Tidningsartiklarna sträcker sig över två tidsperioder, 1996-1997 och 2006-2007. En frågeställning som uppsatsen försöker besvara är om analysens tidningsartiklar går att koppla till Ruth Levitas diskursmodeller om socialt utanförskap. Den centrala teoretiska utgångspunkten är ett postkolonialt perspektiv. Uttrycket ”vi och dem” utgör en röd tråd genom hela uppsatsen. Metoden för analysen är det diskursanalytiska verktyget diskursteori. Uppsatsens analys visar på tre centrala teman där samtliga utgår från utanförskap. Dessa teman är kultur och utanförskap, fördelning och utanförskap samt arbete och utanförskap.</p>

Le travail de thèse a porté sur l'utilisation des données radar dans les domaines de la validation et de l'initialisation des modèles atmosphériques à échelle kilométrique. Dans la première partie, un simulateur radar sophistiqué et modulaire est développé dans le modèle atmosphérique à haute résolution Méso-NH. Des tests de sensibilité sur les différentes formulations utilisées pour décrire chaque processus physique impliqué dans les mesures radar (réflectivités et vents radiaux Doppler) sont effectués. Ils permettent de préciser le niveau de complexité nécessaire pour la simulation de la donnée radar à des fins de validation et pour l'opérateur d'observation à des fins d'assimilation des données radar. Dans la seconde partie, une méthode originale est développée pour assimiler les réflectivités. Cette méthode en deux temps, appelée 1D+3DVar, restitue d'abord des profils verticaux d'humidité à partir de profils de réflectivité par le biais d'une technique bayésienne qui utilise des colonnes voisines d'humidité et de réflectivité cohérentes du modèle. Les pseudo-observations restituées sont à leur tour assimilées par un système d'assimilation 3DVar à la résolution de 2,5 km. La méthode est évaluée et réglée avec à la fois des données simulées et réelles. On montre notamment le bénéfice de l'assimilation des données de réflectivité pour les prévisions à courte échéance de la situation des inondations exceptionnelles de septembre 2002 dans le Gard.

近年來網路學習隨著網路的發展，逐漸受到重視。網路是一個開放式環境，擁有豐富的學習資源，並且突破學習時的空間限制、時間限制，讓使用者擁有較高的學習自主性。由於在網路學習環境中，學習者必須負擔選擇和學習的責任，容易有學習迷失的問題。因此，蘇俊銘等提出一個動態產生適性化教材順序的Instructional Activity Model(IAM)。更依據所提出的IAM，設計一個符合美國國防部所提出之SCORM標準的系統。 根據奧蘇伯爾在認知同化學習論中所提到，能力之間是會互相影響的。然而IAM並未考量能力與能力之間的相互影響關係。因此本研究將將結合奧蘇伯爾同化論，提出一個考慮能力與能力之間相互關係的適性化教學模型，提供學習路徑導引。期望藉由此模型，能夠提供E-learning環境設計者，設計更符合學習者能力狀況的適性化學習課程。 / E-Learning issues have been discussed and investigated recent years. Internet environment provides multiple choices of learning time and learning materials. Much research has been done on E-Learning. The standards of E-Learning platform have been developed to make the learning content sharable and reusable. Some research has been devoted to the design of adaptive Learning system for need of different users. The Instructional Activity Model (IAM) is a general-purpose model to generate an adaptive learning course, which is compatible with the SCORM standard. IAM is composed of related Activity Tree (AT tree) nodes and capability nodes. Prerequisites are capabilities supposed to posses before learning an AT tree while contributions are capabilities after learning an AT tree. IAM model supports the adaptive learning sequencing by considering the relationships between AT trees and capability nodes. However, the IAM model does not take the influence between capabilities into consideration, especially for the assimilation of capabilities. In this paper, we propose the mechanism to integrate the concept of assimilation theory to the IAM model. In our proposed mechanism, the relationships between capabilities are considered based on the similarity measure between capabilities. The selection process of IAM is also modified to reflect the relationships of capabilities. Simulation result shows that the proposed mechanism is helpful for the learning sequencing.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, 1986. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-126).

Thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universität, Berlin, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-275).

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2008

Thesis (D. Min.)--Western Seminary, Portland, OR, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (253-256).