Summary Of Immigration And Diversity

In his monograph, Diversity and Community in the twenty first century, Robert Putman argues that immigration and diversity poses challenges to social capital and solidarity.(163) Putnam first talks about the different kinds of immigration that have occured over the years in this country and the benefits it have in a society. He claimed that diversity and immigration will be “a national asset.” (140) His first reasons is that imigrations leads to diversity which foster creativity. This is shown through both the national and international achievements of first and second generation immigrants. Second, immigration contribute to the rapid economic growth of a nation. For instance, young immigrants workers contribute financially to the US Social security system but will not rceives the benefits for several decades. Thirdly, immigration help offset the fiscal effects of the retirements of the baby boom generation. Lastly, immigration enhances the development of the emigrating countries due to the transfer of techonoly and resources through the imigrants networks.

After Putman briefly discuused the benefits, he evaluated the challenges of immigration and diversity by detailing the two hypothesis that are preceived in american society. The first hypothesis is the contact hypothesis; it argues …show more content…
The reasearchers primary question was how does diversity impact people likelihood of helping others? Their hpothesis was based on the contact thoery. It was that people who resde in more diverse neighborhoods would be more likely to help not only other people in their community but also strangers because they are more likely to identify with all of humanity.The researchers conducted five different studies to test their