Article written by Richard Alba and 2010 DPDF Multiculturalism, Immigration, and Identity in Western Europe and the United States Research Director Nancy Foner:

In comparing different countries, studies often seek to account for the
success of immigrant integration, or lack of it, in a small number of
“grand ideas,” such as nationally specific “models” of integration, which
attempt to provide overarching explanations for cross-national differences
and similarities. This article evaluates five grand ideas in light of
our study examining how four European (Britain, France, Germany,
and the Netherlands) and two North American (U.S., Canada) countries
are meeting the challenges of integrating immigrants and their second-
generation children across a variety of domains from the labor
market, to the educational system, to the polity. We conclude that
while some of the grand ideas help to illuminate patterns of integration
in particular domains, none provides a sufficiently encompassing explanation—and each has significant failings. Moreover, none of these ideas highlights all of the features that we argue are critical, although these do not boil down to one “grand narrative.” These features are the characteristics
or qualities that immigrants bring with them when they
move to Europe or North America; demographic and other social and
economic trends there; and, perhaps most important, historically rooted
social, political, and economic institutions in each receiving society that
create barriers as well as bridges to integration and inclusion.