Catapulted into Upward Educational Mobility: Gender, Age and Educational Attainment in Moroccan Girls Settled in Spain
Publication Date: 10/04/2020
Author(s): Sofia Laiz Moreira.
Volume/Issue: Volume 3 , Issue 2 (2020)
Abstract:
This paper explores how inter-generational relations and gender roles in migrant families are being re-adapted to the current crisis context in Spain. It aims to provide conclusions of a research work conducted with Moroccan families arriving in Spain. Through a multisided fieldwork, this study explores how structural determinants and family structure lead to inter-generational arrangements that aim at defining the family migration project in the financial and social crisis in Europe in 2010. The field work conducted with eighteen Moroccan youngsters and their family groups focused closely on migrant intra-family dynamics, and especially on immigrant children’s role in the group social mobility project and on family survival strategies in a crisis context. The analysis was carried out from an inter-generational and gender perspective and enabled the exploration of the ways in which migration can bring different influences to bear on different family group members. Tensions between generations and towards traditional survival strategies in the Moroccan family would seem to explain many of these negotiation processes. Findings identify two negotiation scenarios: the second generation’s place in original migration project objectives and the descendants’ role in family group survival strategies that challenge gender traditional hierarchies.
