Longitudinal Study of the Second Generation in Spain (ILSEG)

Public version of the ILSEG data (ILSEG is the Spanish acronym for Investigacion Longitudinal de la Segunda Generacion, Longitudinal Study of the Second Generation). Questions address the current situation and plans for the future of young Spaniards who are children of immigrants to Spain, who were living in Madrid and Barcelona and attending secondary school in 2007-2008. Represents the first attempt to conduct a large-scale study of the adaptation of children of immigrants to Spanish society over time. To that end, a large and statistically representative sample of children born to foreign parents in Spain or those brought at an early age to the country was identified and interviewed in metropolitan Madrid and Barcelona. In total, almost 7,000 children of immigrants attending basic secondary school in close to 200 educational centers in both cities took part in the study. Topics include basic demographics, national origins, Spanish language acquisition, foreign language knowledge and retention, parents' education and employment, respondents' education and aspirations, religion, household arrangements, life experiences, and attitudes about Spanish society. Demographic variables include age, sex, birth country, language proficiency (Spanish and Catalan), language spoken in the home, number of siblings, mother's and father's birth country, religion, national identity, parent's sex, parent's marital status, parent's birth year, and the year the parent arrived in Spain. Also see the ILSEG site and Waves 1-3.