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Many studies find that high shares of native friends are positively related to immigrant youths' identification with the host country. By examining various immigrant groups together, these studies imply that having native friends matters in the same way for the national identification in different immigrant groups. In contrast, we argue that the extent to which having native friends affects immigrants' national identification depends on both immigrant group characteristics and the receiving context, especially on ethnic boundaries and related group differences in perceived discrimination and the compatibility of ethnic and national identities. Analyses based on data from the National Educational Panel Study in Germany that are representative of 15-year-old adolescents in secondary schools indeed reveal pronounced group differences: While national identification of ethnic German repatriates as well as of adolescents of former Yugoslavian and Southern European origin is related to the share of native friends, as hypothesized, we do not find this association for immigrants of Turkish and Polish origin. Our finding underlines the importance of theoretically as well as empirically accounting for group differences.

Verwendete Daten und Zugang zu den Daten (via GESIS Datenarchiv):
Diehl, Claudia; Gijsberts, Mérove; Güveli, Ayse; Koenig, Matthias; Kristen, Cornelia; Lubbers, Marcel; McGinnity, Frances; Mühlau, Peter; Platt, Lucinda; Van Tubergen, Frank (2016):
Causes and Consequences of Socio-Cultural Integration Processes among New Immigrants in Europe (SCIP).
GESIS Datenarchiv, Köln. ZA5956 Datenfile Version 1.0.0, http://dx.doi.org/10.4232/1.12341

"Comparatively few studies quantitatively examine the mechanisms underlying the formation of and change in young immigrants' ethnic and host country national identifications. A key reason for this research gap is the lack of an accurate measure of ethnic and national identity that meets the demands of integration research, i.e., includes a native reference group and is applicable to various age groups. In this article, we propose and test such a measure. As ethnic identity and national identity both are types of social identity, our measure distinguishes three crucial dimensions of social identity. The cognitive dimension not only captures whether immigrants and their descendants actually conceive of themselves as belonging to the country of origin of their families but also captures the presence of potential dual identities. The evaluative dimension assesses how non-native and native youths evaluate their group memberships, respectively. Finally, the emotional dimension measures their respective strength of commitment towards their family's country of origin as well as
towards the host country. After presenting our measure of ethnic and of national identity, we test it quantitatively on native and non-native children and youths aged between 9 and 17 years. Our analyses confirm the suspected multi-dimensionality of both ethnic and national identity. We also ascertain the invariance of our measure across immigrants and natives as well as across different immigrant generations and age groups. The results further indicate strong reliability and construct validity. We therefore conclude that our proposed measure not only
adequately captures different dimensions of ethnic and of national identity but that it is also
applicable to different ethnic and age groups, thereby providing a valuable tool for studying
immigrants' identification." (author's abstract)

This study investigated the effects of ethnic minority adolescents' ethnic self‐identification (host country, dual, or heritage country) on friendship choices among ethnic majority and minority peers. Hypotheses were derived from similarity–attraction and social identity theory and tested using longitudinal social network data from 1,004 middle school students (five schools) in Germany. Results showed that ethnic minority adolescents' ethnic self‐identification affected friendship selection beyond ethnic homophily. While host country and dual identification was beneficial with respect to friendships with both ethnic majority and minority peers, heritage country identification was detrimental to relations with both of them.

Immigrants who strongly identify with the host country have more native friends than immigrants with weaker host country identification. However, the mechanisms underlying this correlation are not well understood. Immigrants with strong host country identification might have stronger preferences for native friends, or they might be more often chosen as friends by natives. In turn, having native friends or friends with strong host country identification might increase immigrants' host country identification. Using longitudinal network data of 18 Dutch school classes, we test these hypotheses with stochastic actor-oriented models. We find that immigrants' host country identification affects friendship selections of natives but not of immigrants. We find no evidence of social influence processes.