The trouble with "integration success"
Why a single word — success — does more harm than good in how we talk and write about integration.
The trouble with integration success
"Successful integration" is one of those phrases that sounds neutral and carries a lot of hidden work. It smuggles in a destination, a finish line, a single definition of arrival.
In the field, I almost never meet someone who thinks of themselves as having succeeded at integration. I meet people building relationships, finding work, raising children, joining a soccer league. Success, if it arrives, is someone else's verdict on their life.
For researchers, the cost of the word is real: it nudges us toward the measurable and away from the meaningful. A better vocabulary stays closer to the verbs people actually use — settle, belong, contribute, reconcile — and lets the nouns follow.