Childhood and migration

Childhood and migration has long been a neglected issue in social sciences despite the fact that children make up a large proportion of migrants and take on important roles in mediating between their world of origin and their host society. Through school and other child-specific institutions and contact zones (playing grounds, football fields, kindergarten, backyards etc.) children are often more involved in the social life of their host societies than their parents. Their ways of socializing with other children and with the world around is usually less constrained by prejudice and bias than those of adults and they acquire new cultural knowledge rather fast.

Only recently have social scientists – anthropologists in particular – begun to deal with children’s particular understanding of (migrant) life, their concepts of their place of origin and their host society, their ways of building identity in migrant contexts. How do children experience, view and manage migration, how do they construct an identity for themselves which takes into account their experiences from both their places of origin and their host societies?

One of the key issues raised in this context is the view children have of both their respective culture of origin and their host society and whether and by which means a relationship is maintained to the former while home is made in the latter. Are there gender specific differences concerning the construction of identity in the course of migration and how do different motivations and reasons for migration influence the course that migration and integration take?

Another important issue is the process of social and cultural integration in society at large and how it is influenced by the dynamics of interaction of the cultural background of the respective society of origin on the one hand and the integration strategies and practices of the respective host society on the other.

The role of social milieus and peer groups is also an important issue when dealing with children experiencing and managing migration. How do peer group environments, socialization at home and school interact or contradict each other and how do children deal with these different social milieus and the demands they put on them? Almost all migrants of all ages experience xenophobia of some sort and one of the concerns of studies dealing with migrant children is to find out how children cope with a lack of acceptance, with hostility and exclusion, how they make use of existing institutions to overcome frustrations and create new social niches for themselves. How do they express processes of cultural orientation, integration, disintegration via music, writing, media, and forms of creative discourse? The investigation of these processes is not only of scientific interest but may also give important impetus to the development of strategies of integration that appeal to children and serve their needs.

References

*Knörr, Jacqueline:" Childhood and Migration. From Experience to Agency". Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005. ISBN 3-89942-384-4