"Research in the field of Ethnic and Migration Studies has predominantly focused on immigrants (and their children) with poor educational credentials and the lowest labor market positions. A relative blind spot has been the surge and role of new elites within these populations. The central aim of the ELITES project is to examine the formation of new elites among the Turkish second generation in eight European cities (European cities with large Turkish communities) and a comparison group of elite members of native parentage of lower class background. The ELITES project analyzes differences in the pathways, resources and individual strategies that have contributed to attaining an elite position. The project looks at the impact of these new elites upon the Turkish communities, and to what extent they take up leadership positions in mainstream organisations. For this second part of the ELITES project we focus on the networks of the elite members. The Turkish second generation elite is compared with an elite of native parentage to see if findings for the second generation Turks are specific or are part of a more general pattern.For the ELITES project we use both quantitative and qualitative research methods. We will interview in-dept 240 elites members in eight European cities. The two PhD students will investigate in their subprojects the importance of respectively ethnicity and gender in the elite formation of the two groups. In the second part of the project (sub project 3) we gather information about the closest and most crucial (for their elite position) network members of the respondents. From these network members we will also gather information about their network contacts. The resulting elites network information will be analyzed quantitatively and compared across the eight research sites. In subproject 4 we make a synthesis of the information about elite formation gathered in the two qualitative subprojects and information of the network project."