Education, Mobilities and Migration

People, ideas and resources

Madeleine Arnot, Claudia Schneider, Oakleigh Welply

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367596897
• eBook ISBN: 9781317224167
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Within the context of increased global migration and mobility, education occupies a central role which is being transformed by new human movements and cultural diversity, flows, and networks. Studies under the umbrella terms of migration, mobility, and mobilities reveal the complexity of these concepts. The field of study ranges from global child mobility as a response to poverty, to the reconceptualising of notions of inclusion in relation to pastoralist lifestyles, to the ways in which new offshore institutions and transnational diasporas shape the educational experiences of students, families, and teachers. At the heart of this new research is a need to explore how identity, integration, and social stratification play a role in the story of global migration between and within the Global North and South.

This volume focuses on three major themes: poverty, migration, social mobility and social reproduction; networks of migration within and across national education systems; and higher education and international student mobility, and the concerns and opportunities that go along with this mobility. The international group of researchers who have contributed to this book demonstrate how educational institutions are part of a common global project characterised by fluidity, how the social fabric of educational institutions responds to demographic diversity, and how new social differentiations occur as a result of human movement. By bringing together these contributions, a number of important theoretical and empirical methodological dimensions are identified that need more attention within the growing field of migration and education studies. This volume shows how mobilities and transnational interconnectedness create multiple interactions that tie our different educational projects together. This book was originally published as a special issue of Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.

‘We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud’: educational aspirations, social mobility and independent child migration among populations living in poverty

Jo Boyden

Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

This article examines the association between formal education, social mobility and independent child migration in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam and draws on data from Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty and schooling. It argues that among resource-poor populations, child migration sustains kin relations across generations and households and also facilitates children’s progression through the life-course, thus it is fundamental to social reproduction. It reasons that formal education has greatly amplified this trend. Schooling has acquired symbolic value as the prime means of escaping household poverty and realising ambitions for social mobility. As such, elevated educational aspirations combine with systems shortcomings to stimulate school selection, school transfer and school-related child migration. The article concludes by examining the implications for children, for social reproduction and for policy.

Introduction

The link globally between school education and childhood mobility is becoming ever more apparent. Yet in orthodox scholarly accounts this association unsettles cherished ideals with regard to the child, the family and the school and the role of family and formal education in the care and socialisation of the young. Parental proximity and the residentially fixed home having become naturalised as essential to child wellbeing, child movement away from the home is represented through discourses of family rupture and dysfunction (critiqued in Ni Laoire et al. 2010; Serra 2009; Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007). Likewise, the relationship between child mobility and formal education, when it is considered, is most often framed in the negative, as precipitating educational failure or school abandonment (for example, McKenzie and Rapoport 2006; Smita 2008). In effect, only in the boarding school tradition is separation from parents for didactic purposes accepted as legitimate practice.

Drawing on qualitative data from Young Lives,¹ a mixed-methods cohort study of childhood poverty and schooling in Ethiopia, India (in the state of Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam, this article explores the relationship between schooling and child mobility from a rather different perspective. It maintains that in contexts of poverty, child mobility is less an anathema and more a fundamental feature of social reproduction, the recent expansion of formal education magnifying this circumstance. The article makes an analytical link between poverty, educational aspirations, ambitions for social mobility and children’s physical mobility. In doing so, it uses the terms ‘mobility’ and ‘migration’ interchangeably to refer both to children departing solo from the natal home and to non-parental residence.² It finds that familial social mobility is increasingly thought to depend on children’s education, raised educational aspirations producing a demand for schooling that is relevant, of good quality and has social worth. In this way, school systems inadequacies, perceived and actual, have led to the commoditisation of education, manifested in dual enrolment, extra tuition, school selection, school transfers and school-related child migration. The article concludes that education can therefore be less a casualty than a driver of child migration.

Section 1 outlines the case for conceptualising child mobility as a central feature of social reproduction and highlights the part played by formal education. Section 2 briefly describes the Young Lives research design. Section 3 examines educational aspirations and delivery in the study countries. Section 4 outlines the evidence on school selection, school transfers and school-related child migration. The final section highlights the implications of these processes for children’s social integration and learning, for social reproduction and for educational planning more broadly.

1. Independent child migration: a theoretical challenge?

Migration has become a major area of social science enquiry in recent decades, recognised as associated with widespread societal transformation and economic development (Maddox 2010). Yet migration research has taken little account of children’s mobility (Ni Laoire et al. 2010; Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007). The assumption has been that, as household dependents, children remain with their biological parents under all normal circumstances, either accompanying them during relocation or continuing in the natal home when a parent stays behind. Underlying this assumption is the idea that children’s physical immaturity is invariably coupled with developmental vulnerability, their healthy growth and social adjustment contingent upon sustained emotional attachments and physical proximity with parents (Schaffer 1999). In this way, child relocation from the natal home is repeatedly conflated in the literature with familial crisis, child exploitation, trafficking and developmental risk (for example Boonpala and Kane 2001; for a critique, Boyden and Howard 2013).

Recent empirical work has presented a very different picture, making clear that, in practice, childhood is envisioned, structured and experienced in divergent ways across the globe. Specifically, research within geography, anthropology and related disciplines has highlighted the spatiality of childhood experience and provided plentiful evidence that both child mobility and non-parental residence are customary in many parts of the world (see, for example, Ansell and van Blerk 2004; Hashim 2007; Hashim and Thorsen 2011; Heissler 2013; Huijsmans 2008; Leinaweaver 2008; Punch 2007; Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007). Child mobility is closely associated with rural modes of social organisation and commonly prevails in areas that cannot guarantee household subsistence or meet young people’s social ambitions (Rao 2010b). Indeed, in parts of West Africa it is so widespread that there can be shame in young people remaining at home (Akua Anyidoho and Ainsworth 2009). This evidence brings into question the ‘powerful ideologies that place idealised childhoods in fixed and bounded spaces’ (Ni Laoire et al. 2010, 157), as well as the depiction of children as mere family dependents, or ‘luggage’ (Orellana et al. 2001), during migration. It also provides important insights for theorising the association between household poverty, child migration and school education.

To better appreciate this link, it is necessary to understand the wider logic underlying child relocation and non-parental residence among populations experiencing poverty. Briefly, inasmuch as it safeguards the care, development and economic contribution of the young, children’s migration plays a central role in both the individual life-course and the domestic cycle and is therefore less an expression of familial dysfunction than a fundamental attribute of social reproduction. Starting with its part in the life-course, independent migration has long been one of the chief means by which boys and girls fulfil their multiple responsibilities towards their family. The young are seldom simply household dependents in contexts of poverty and more often active participants in domestic economic and care regimes (Robson et al. 2006; Spittler and Bourdillon 2012). Particularly significant for the present discussion, contributing to the household not only supports young people’s learning and development (Bourdillon et al. 2010) but also enables them to demonstrate respect for parents and elders (Heissler and Porter forthcoming). Children’s familial contributions have both instrumental and symbolic value, helping fulfil immediate domestic requirements and also serving collective ambitions for the future, through the prospect of a financial or social return to their future employment or marriage.

Less disruptive to domestic economies and organisation than whole families moving away, independent child migration is especially common in rural areas with low or declining agricultural productivity and limited employment opportunities. Children’s movement is commonly articulated through close ties of kinship, friendship and shared community of origin (Giani 2006; Heissler 2013). Since it entails leaving the natal home alone and/or assuming proto-adult roles at the place of destination, child relocation can occasion significant life-course changes. For example, it may facilitate entry into paid work (Iversen 2002), the learning of new trades and skills (Ansell and van Blerk 2004; Dobson 2009; Dougnon 2012; Hashim 2007) or autonomous living (Rao 2010a). This evidence has led to the theorisation of independent child migration as a life transition event (Punch 2007). In terms of the part played by child mobility in the domestic cycle, young people relocating is very often an outcome of dispersed familial networks in which separate households are interdependent economically and socially and to varying degrees, pool labour, income, goods and social care (for example Alber 2003; Ansell and van Blerk 2004; van Blerk 2005; Boyden and Howard 2013; Hashim 2007). So, the young may move to a household that offers nurturance, sponsorship or learning opportunities that are not available in the natal home or, alternatively, to augment the labour of a host household that has shortages. In this way, child relocation sustains productive and reproductive labour and reinforces familial ties across both generations and households.

The main thesis of this article is that the recent expansion of school systems and associated escalation in educational aspirations have intensified child mobility among populations living in poverty. Within the context of the global rise of the ‘knowledge economy’, formal education has become the defining feature of modern childhood (Crivello 2009, 395–396), commonly perceived of as the prime path out of poverty, to expanded opportunity and to broader societal transformation (Froerer 2011; Rao 2010a). In providing a major focus for collective social aspirations, schooling increasingly competes with, and is gradually superseding, work as children’s prime familial responsibility. At the same time, with uneven education access, quality and relevance and with individual schools being awarded different social worth, schooling has become progressively more commoditised, the subject of preferences and choice that give impetus to school transfers and, ultimately, independent child migration.

The education-related motives for boys and girls migrating are very varied. They include the search for better quality schooling (Bano 2007; Giani 2006), the possibility, especially in rural areas, of entering secondary school (Ansell 2004; Porter et al. 2011) or of working to cover school expenses (Punch 2007). Rural schooling may also prompt relocation when it fails to serve employment aspirations or is perceived as needlessly prolonging dependence (Ofosu-Kusi and Mizen 2012). Often children relocate to families that are better able to sponsor their schooling (Zimmerman 2003) or willing to support their education in exchange for their labour (Hashim 2007). Migration for education may give rise to social parenthood through fosterage (Alber 2003) and in some contexts fostered children are more likely than others to attend school (Zimmerman 2003, 558). Thus, the literature points to school-related incentives for child migration as ranging from economic or mentoring opportunities to constraints in the natal home and systems shortcomings in the immediate locality. This article focuses on the part played by educational aspirations and systems weaknesses in Ethiopia, Andhra Pradesh and Peru (and to a lesser extent Vietnam). Before providing the evidence and analysis, it briefly outlines the Young Lives research design.

2. Young Lives³

In each of the study countries, Young Lives is following 2000 boys and girls born in 2001–2002 and up to 1000 born in 1994–1995 over 15 years. The children were selected randomly from 20 rural and urban sites per country that were chosen from amongst the poorest regions nationally. So far, three survey rounds have been administered to the full sample of children, their caregivers and community representatives, in 2002, 2006 and 2009 and three rounds of qualitative data have been gathered from a sub-sample of children from both age cohorts, in 2007, 2008 and 2011. The qualitative methods comprise semi-structured interviews, focus groups, drawing (including community mapping and life-course draw-and-tell), writing (a daily activity diary) and photo elicitation. In the survey, questions on schooling history, parental involvement in children’s education and parental aspirations for children’s education are complemented by information on children’s time use and academic achievement and, in rounds two and three, desired levels of education. The qualitative research covers children’s attitudes towards and experiences of poverty, their sense of well-being and ill-being and hopes for the future, as well as their roles and social and institutional transitions. School-based research was introduced in 2010, enabling examination of the educational experiences of Young Lives children at key stages in their educational careers.

Child migration was not central to the initial research design and at the time of recruitment into the study the child respondents were all living with their families. Moreover, across the sample, the majority of boys and girls who attend school have remained within the catchment area. However, a number of children, some of whom are in the qualitative sub-sample, have relocated for their studies and many have siblings who are studying elsewhere. Also, many express a desire to migrate, either to be able to continue their education or to access a better school, and in Andhra Pradesh many are either enrolled in more than one school or have transferred between schools several times, while some are boarding. It is not possible to determine the incidence or trends in school transfers or school-related mobility from the survey data because the broad reach of topics covered limits the opportunity for detailed questioning on specific subjects and also because the wide variation in the duration, nature and conceptualisation of migratory processes leads to significant underreporting. Therefore, this article draws on qualitative data obtained mainly from the older cohort and their caregivers.

3. The drivers of mobility

Educational aspirations and delivery

The economies of the four study countries grew significantly between 2002 and 2009. In all cases, economic growth has been associated with national expansion of formal education and with high levels of school enrolment among children in the Young Lives sample. Thus, in 2002, at 97% or above, primary school enrolment was near-universal across Andhra Pradesh, Peru and Vietnam (Murray 2012). Systems expansion has been complemented by a range of measures to boost school participation, including advocacy, compulsion and incentives. In line with these promotional efforts and with schooling progressively serving wider social ambitions, Young Lives children and caregivers express high levels of commitment to formal education. Thus, for example, even though it is a pro-poor sample, more than half of the parents of eight-year-olds in Ethiopia, Peru and Vietnam wanted their child to complete university (Pells 2011). Moreover, the survey data reveal considerable coherence between caregivers’ ambitions for their children’s education and children’s own educational ambitions in all four study countries. Dercon and Singh (2013) found a striking association between caregivers’ educational aspirations for children when they were aged 8 and children’s aspirations for themselves at age 15. They also observed that children with higher aspirations at age 15 were more likely to be enrolled at that age.

One of the most notable features of raised aspirations is the perception that school education is both the sole means of escaping poverty and the prime vector for social mobility. For girls in Andhra Pradesh, this is often about obtaining sufficient education to enhance their prospects of marrying an educated man. This reasoning was clearly articulated by Harika, who is from the cotton growing area of Poompuhar and recently moved to a government hostel so that she could attend college:

You get better jobs if you study and you have a better life and can marry an educated husband. If your husband is in agriculture, you have to go to the fields and work. If he is educated, you can be happy. We see our parents working and we feel that we do not want to be like them. They work in the fields and work hard every day.

In Andhra Pradesh there is considerable diversity in types of school and a recent escalation in low-fee private options has elevated educational aspirations, greatly influencing school choice. Measuring the educational level and job parents would like their children to obtain, Galab et al. (forthcoming) find that the children whose parents aspire for them to remain longer in education are more likely to attend private school. They also report that the magnitude of the increase in probability of private school enrolment is much higher when parents plan for their children to go to university and/or work in a high-status or high-income occupation.

Elevated educational aspirations are evident among children and caregivers throughout the qualitative sub-sample, across all four countries. The most consistent narrative along these lines comes from rural Peru. Crivello (2010) argues that, though most rely on their children’s work, there is widespread consensus among rural caregivers in Peru that school education offers an escape from the drudgery of herding and farming, a path to wealth and material security and a means of releasing future generations from the hardship and suffering that they have endured. Recognised as the channel through which to become a ‘professional’, or somebody of social significance, education is also unde...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction – Education, mobilities and migration: people, ideas and resources
• 1. ‘We’re not going to suffer like this in the mud’: educational aspirations, social mobility and independent child migration among populations living in poverty
• 2. Does mobility have to mean being hard to reach? Mobile pastoralists and education’s ‘terms of inclusion’
• 3. Combining identity and integration: comparative analysis of schools for two minority groups in Ukraine
• 4. The contribution of the diaspora to the reconstruction of education in South Sudan: the challenge of being involved from a distance
• 5. Negotiating differences: cosmopolitan experiences of international doctoral students
• 6. ‘Selective cosmopolitans’: tutors’ and students’ experience of offshore higher education in Dubai
• Index