How Much Language is Enough? Some Immigrant Language Lessons from Canada and Germany

Don DeVoretz, Holger Hinte and Christiane Werner
Additional contact information
Christiane Werner: Simon Fraser University

No 555, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Germany and Canada stand at polar ends of the scientific debate over language integration and ascension to citizenship. German naturalization, as of January 2000, contains an explicit language criterion for naturalization. The first German immigration act that will presumably come into effect on January 1, 2003, does not only concentrate on control aspects but also aims at language as a criterion for legal immigration. Canada, in effect, does not base entry or citizenship on knowledge of either of its official languages. Acquisition of a second language in Canada is voluntary and largely dependent on labour market incentives. Which system of second language acquisition – the statist German system or the laissez faire Canadian model – provides the best milieu for immigrant second language acquisition? This paper undertakes a comparative review of Canadian and German legal and educational programs in order to answer this question.

Keywords: migration politics; language skills; integration; immigration; citizenship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I29 J60 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 90 pages
Date: 2002-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp555.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp555

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().