European inventory of
societal values of culture

Orum - Circles of influence and chains of command

Orum, A. M. (2005). Circles of influence and chains of command: The social processes whereby ethnic communities influence host societies. Social Forces, 84(2): 921–939.

Research into immigration has for many years focused most of its attention on the issue of how immigrants adapt to host societies. This tendency is especially true in the work of sociologists. Yet we should acknowledge the growing ethnic diversity in the United States and elsewhere. In that case, the most exciting questions arise regarding how immigrants influence the host society, not how they adapt to it. This paper proposes a sociological theory to account for such influence. For evidence, it draws on various empirical examples from research on ethnic communities in the United States.