Beginners No More

This open access book provides an updated and interdisciplinary account of immigration in Italy, one of the major European immigration countries, and focuses on the process of settlement of immigrants and their descendants. It describes the most relevant trends of Italian migration dynamics to dispel an outdated understanding of Italy as a “new migration country” and some clichés about the “Italian model of migration”. Building on a theoretically informed and evidence-based discussion of structural changes and continuities, the book considers several domains of immigrants’ social and economic integration – settlement patterns, family, employment, sociability, health – and takes into account second generations’ integration. By providing a portrait of a new phase of migration in Italy, this book provides a valuable resource for not only students and scholars in migration and Italian studies, but also for social scientists and policy-makers interested in grounding comparative work in amore detailed knowledge of national cases.