The care worlds of migrant children – exploring inter-generational dynamics of love, care and solidarity across home and school

Frieda McGovern and Dympna Devine

Full citation: McGovern, F and Devine, D (2016) The care worlds of migrant children – exploring inter-generational dynamics of love, care and solidarity across home and school ; Childhood Vol. 23(1) 37–52

Abstract

There is increasing interest in migrant children’s contribution to family processes of

integration. Less explored is the role of affective bonds and the significance of

children’s care worlds in managing the transition of the migrant family, especially

between home and school. Drawing on a deep ethnographic study of ten diverse

migrant families (parent and child) this paper highlights how intergenerational

practices of love, care and solidarity – the creation of a ‘family feeling’ (Bourdieu,

1998) are central to the negotiation of belonging in the settlement country. However,

affective practices, it is argued, are interconnected with access to economic, social and

cultural resources giving rise to substantive differences in how migrant children

negotiate the transition between home and school.

KeywordsMigrant children, family relationships, care, home, school

Introduction

There is increasing interest in the experiences of migrant children internationally.

Much of the research documents their challenges and struggles to belong in the

settlement society (Bak and Brömssen, 2010, Devine, 2013, Orellana, 2009, Suárez-

Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2002). Relatively under-researched has been the

affective dynamics at play in the migrant process and the importance of practices of

love and care in the everyday lives of migrant children (Luttrell 2013, Parrenas,

2005). At issue here is the impact of immigration on intimate relations, feelings of

happiness, deep love, care, loss, suffering, solidarity and attachment to family and

significant others (Lynch, Baker and Lyons 2009).

We are interested in the intersection between the affective domains of migrant

children’s lives (practices of love, care and solidarity between children, parents and

teachers), and how their ‘care worlds’ (Lynch et al, 2009) are involved in structuring

identities in migration. The affective practices of parents and their children are

particularly highlighted in migration as they work (or not) to preserve core valued

identities and attachments to their place of origin while reworking identities and

belongings in the settlement context (Ní Laoire, Carpena-Méndez, Tyrell and White,

2011; Skrbis, Baldassar, and Poynting, 2007). The nature, quality and recognition of

their care worlds – at home and in schools will ease or complicate transitions for them

(Luttrell, 2013, Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2002).

Bourdieu (1998: 68) in his essay ‘The family Spirit’ illustrates the interdependence

between parents and children, united by intense affective bonds, which through

practical and symbolic work create a collective ‘family feeling’, embedded in

‘devotion, generosity and solidarity’. Our concern is to foreground the ‘practical and

symbolic’ work migrant children and their parents engage in as part of the ‘obligation

to love’ - the practices that generate a ‘loving disposition’ that is at the core of family

inter-generational dynamics. These in turn, we argue, influence wider patterns of

belonging and adaptation by migrant children in the society, especially through their

experiences in schools (Devine 2011).

Love, care and solidarity in migrant children’s lives

Lynch et al (2009) identify three major connected ‘circles of care relations’ or ‘life

worlds’. These can be considered in terms of primary intimate care worlds, for

example, relations between parent and child; secondary care relations with relatives,

friends, neighbours and teachers; and tertiary care relations, working in solidarity with

and for others. They argue for the centrality of care worlds to human social life to be

considered in debates around equality and illustrate how care worlds intersect across

different social contexts. Moreover, it is argued that affective practices do not operate

autonomously but are strongly interconnected with access to economic, social and

cultural resources and are deeply inter-twined with the structuring of inequalities in

the wider society. These can give rise to substantive differences in the ‘care worlds’

of children (Lynch et al 2009: 41). Through loving relations children develop

dispositions – a habitus – not only feelings of solidarity, intimacy and loyalty but also

feelings of shame, sadness, failure and exclusion that set the groundwork for their

subsequent relations with others (Reay, 2005a). Care relations are especially

important in the transition of children through the school system (Luttrell, 2013,

O’Brien, 2009) – self-esteem, care, resilience and trust - a psychic ease (Reay, 2005a)

that mediates the experience, and management of change and transition. These issues

are of particular relevance to understanding the lives of migrant children where

inequalities related to poverty, migration status (economic migrant or asylum seeker)

and racism (Devine et al 2008; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco, 2002) are

especially prevalent. In this paper, we are primarily focusing on primary intimate

care relations in families, requiring ‘love labour’ (Lynch et al, 2009) and secondary

care relations between children, their peers and teachers. While not highlighted, the

evidence suggests that tertiary care relations requiring solidary work are also practised

in schools for example, schools advocating on behalf of families about to be deported

to remain in Ireland (Devine, 2011).

Bourdieu’s (1990) conceptual tools of habitus, field and capital are useful here to

understanding the interconnected nature of relationships between children, parents

and teachers (Devine 2011, Lareau, 2003, Reay, 2000). While ‘field’ denotes the

configuration of relations between actors in given contexts (such as for example

schools), the activation of capitals (cultural, economic and social resources) will both

influence and be influenced by dynamics in the field – creating ‘spheres of re/action’

that will vary from one context to another (Devine 2013: 4). The field of the family is

one, where, as Bourdieu (1998) notes, symbolic work of love, care, feelings of

solidarity and belonging, set the ground work for wider processes of interaction,

including those in schools. Bourdieu’s (1990) conceptual tool of habitus equally

affords a lens within which to focus on how dispositions, of love, intimacy, care,

loyalty, obligation, emotional resilience first structured prior to migration, are

produced and reproduced in new contexts. Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco

(2002:73) illustrate the ruptures to the ‘shared repertoires’ into which children are

socialised prior to migration upon moving to a new country. Implicitly involved is the

emotional work of parents and children as they invest in settling in new contexts.

The remainder of this paper considers the love, care and solidarity practices between

migrant children and their parents in a context of transition to living in Ireland.

Understanding the impact of affective practices in migrant children’s lives is

important in not only understanding interdependency and agency in the migration

process (Devine, 2013) but also in understanding how affective dynamics are

influenced by the wider economic, social and cultural capitals migrant families draw

upon. We are especially interested in how these affective dynamics shape migrant

children’s identities and experience of belonging in their local schools and

communities.

The Irish context

In 2011, the Central Statistics Office estimated that 12% of the Irish population were

migrants from other countries, with migrant children comprising 8.3% of the total

child population. Many of the children in this child population have experienced

separation from their parents for periods prior to being re-unified with their parent/s in

Ireland and 17.7 % live in lone-parent families (CSO, 2011; Department of Children

and Youth Affairs, 2012). These migrants include economic migrants, mainly from

Eastern Europe, the Philippines, returning migrants from the US, UK and Scotland,

those seeking asylum from Africa and Asia and family reunification with families

already granted refugee status. Within Irish society, the ethnic ‘norm’ is white and

Catholic, reflected in a mostly state funded denominational school system in which, at

primary level the majority (90%) of schools are under Catholic patronage, while 2.3%

are classified as multi-denominational (Darmody, Smyth, and McCoy 2012). For

migrant families especially, this is significant given that 48% profess religions other

than Catholic (CSO 2011). This is an additional challenge that is part of the ‘work’

that needs to be done in settling into Irish society through engagement and interaction

with the school system.

Methodology

The focus of the research is a deep ethnography of ten diverse migrant families

(Mother or Father) attending two multi-ethnic primary schools of contrasting faith

ethos, one with a Catholic ethos (Berrywood) and the other with a multi-

denominational ethos (Ashglen) (see Table 1).

Locating the child as an active collaborator, the research design incorporated a

reflexive qualitative methodological approach (Luttrell, 2010a). At the core of the

research design was an attempt to highlight family voices through the involvement of

parents and their children that would enable deep insights into migrant children’s lives

at home and at school.

The research was conducted through a variety of inquiry tools: extended observations

in two senior classes; semi-structured interviews with parents, teachers and school

personnel; and collaboration with children (aged 11-13 years) as co-researchers

through a ‘photovoice' visual methodology. The photovoice methodology is based on

the research design developed by Luttrell (2010d). Using photographs enabled the

children, particularly those learning through English as an additional language, to

have autonomy over the data they produced, analysed and presented. The research

facilitated the children to become ‘photo-journalists’ where they were asked to

‘Imagine that you have a cousin of your own age moving to live near you. Your

cousin is also coming to your school. Take photos of what you would like your

cousin to know about your home, your community and your school’. Over a number

of school days and one weekend the children were given disposable cameras to carry

out their assignment. One child (Serena) lost her camera and her evidence is based on

her imaginary photographs. Conversations around their photos illustrated the

complexities of children’s emotional lives and the deeper scripts that underlie their

narratives about life at home and at school.

Ethical considerations were important and informed the study throughout, in terms of

access, consent and vulnerabilities (Morrow, 2008).

The remainder of the paper details findings that directly emerged from the children’s

narratives around their photographs, under two main themes. These are supplemented

with insights gained from observations and other data collection sources with teachers

and parents. The first explores affective practices in the study children’s lives.

Secondly, the intersection between these practices and the families’ access to social,

cultural and economic capitals is considered with respect to how they influence the

children’s transition into the school system.

Love, solidarity and care work in migrant children’s lives

The significance of care relations at home and at school emerged through the

children’s narratives. Elena illustrates:

Schools and home combine through happiness. You are always cared for and

when you need help or comforting, someone is always there to say it is alright

… my pictures show that I am safe with everyone surrounding me, friends and

teachers and of course family that will always come first … no matter what

you will always be loved by your family.

A number of themes emerged in the analysis of how this symbolic work of love and

care between children and parents shaped their identities and ways of belonging in

migration – the impact of separation, transnational family connectedness, the

centrality of cultural and religious identities, the critical role of children in connecting

their parents to the wider culture and the investment in education by parents and

children in pursuit of a ‘better life’ in Ireland.

Separation, reunification and family connectedness

Orellana et al (2001) note the active role played by children in facilitating parents

connectedness in transnational spaces and in settling in the new country. She argues

that children are central in shaping migrant family trajectories and in doing so shape

their own evolving identities (p. 588). In our study, some of the children’s lives were

characterised by trajectories involving separation, reunification, loneliness and

longing. They along with their parents and wider families, worked to remain

connected to each other, seeking to improve pre-migration conditions and create a

‘better life’ while negotiating belonging in the Irish context.

Anna, Elena and Grazina (East European, economic migrant background) and Niesha

and Amira (West African, refugee background) were separated from their parents for

periods of ten months to seven years. Their experiences highlight how separation and

reunification within the migratory process shaped their unique trajectories and

identities. Ana, for example, remained in Romania with her grandparents when her

parents migrated to Ireland. The family’s investment in migration involved great

emotional costs in terms of pain and loss for both parents and child:

Ana was only 10 months, she was only a baby when we left Romania and I

had to leave her there for another 10 months with my parents. When I got here

it was really hard without her…I was able to dream of everyone at home, see

their faces and everything but only her I couldn't.

Ana’s Mum described Ana’s pain and anxiety on her journey to Ireland with her

Mother’s friend and her reunion with ‘strangers’, the ‘blame’ she still experiences and

the consequences of the separation for Ana.

When she came, she was walking around all scared, she didn't know my

friend, she didn't know us so it was very hard when they took her from my

parents in the airport she cried a lot because she didn't know where she was

going with some strangers. So I think that was a big change for Ana and the

person she is today because I think that thing matured Ana.

Children’s experience of separation and their perception of the causes substantively

influence their subsequent adaption to the country of migration (Suárez-Orozco and

Suárez–Orozco, 2002: 67). We see how for Ana, her loving grand-parents in Romania

and her family in Ireland generate intimacy, solidarity and feelings of being well-

loved:

I was my parents’ Christmas present. I was born on Christmas Eve in

Romania, then my Dad, when I was around one year old or a few months old,

went to Ireland and then my Mum went too and I was left in Romania with my

grandmother and she took care of me and then my Mam's friend from

Romania she brought me back and my Mum was so happy to see me and she

started crying.

These memories of the pain of loss, grief, longing and love inscribed in Ana’s

memory, structure her emotional life and her very developed sense of care, fairness

and justice. We see this in how Ana negotiated her belonging in Ashglen multi-

denominational primary school where a school culture embracing human rights,

equality of respect and recognition for children’s diverse identities circumscribes the

schools work. Ana illustrates:

This [photo] is the sign of the school. It's a boy and a girl holding the world

with a rainbow above them and they each have different colours, and that's

important to show that we respect and learn about each other's cultures and

religions.

This recognition, respect and inclusion experienced as caring and solidarity were

critical to her sense of well-being, developing and nurturing her family’s strong sense

of a hybrid Romanian – Irish identity (Ní Laoire et al, 2011). The research confirmed

the enormous pressure Ana puts on herself academically and the value she places on

family and friendship were observed across all fields of action (Devine 2013),

including in the home and in her relations with teachers and peers.

In contrast to Ana and her Mum’s narratives of separation, Niesha and her Mum’s

story illustrate how unplanned separation and reunification for them was a traumatic

experience impacting on their sense of psychological well-being, particularly in the

re-unification and resettlement period (McFarlane, Kaplan and Lawrence, 2011).

Niesha’s Mum was a young mother of eighteen years when she fled to Ireland seeking

asylum, leaving her young baby in the care of her grandmother for four years: ‘I didn't

come with her . I left her when she was really small so it was really difficult’. In

Ireland, the process of recognition of refugee status is protracted (Ní Laoire et al,

2011) compounding the length of separation of mother and child. Niesha’s experience

of separation and re-unification generated feelings of insecurity (Parrenas, 2005). Her

Mum described how Niesha ‘cried and cried’ and experienced great difficulties

bonding with her on reunification. Interviews with Niesha’s teachers in Berrywood

confirmed how distraught and upset she was in her early days there, illustrating the

emotional challenges of reunification for some immigrant children noted in other

research (Parrenas, 2005; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez -Orozco, 2002: 66).

However, care and solidarity practices in Berrywood mediated through a Catholic

Communitarian ethos of empathy and material support (Devine 2011) mitigated to

some extent her feelings of insecurity, providing understanding, safety and a sense of

belonging. Niesha illustrates her feeling of being cared for: ‘That is Nora [school

secretary]… the person at the reception…let's say you are sick or you are hurt, Nora

will go and call your Mum. These school care practices in Berrywood, experienced as

a ‘safe and happy place’ are critical to Niesha’s settlement.

Family solidarities: Sustaining and nourishing cultural and religious identities

We consider the work of immigrant families in transmitting cultural, religious and

language identities as a form of ‘love labour’(Lynch et al 2009:42) ‘undertaken

through affection, commitment, attentiveness and the material investment of time,

energy and resources’. It includes the symbolic and practical work parents and their

children invested: in daily attendance at Koran and Arabic classes after school;

weekend school in the Romanian Orthodox Church; return visits to their country of

origin and internet communication.

The North African and East European families make frequent visits ‘home’, during

the summer holidays. Ana’s parents, for example, visit their family and send their

children ‘back to Romania’ nearly every summer to ‘spend the summer with [their]

cousins and grandparents’. Ana’s Mum explains that her children speak Romanian

and English as ‘[t]hat is what I wanted for them, to speak both languages rather than

lose their [home language]’. Retention of fluency by Ana and her brother in the

Romanian language is critical in the maintenance of affective relations and

communication with extended family, particularly on visits ‘home’.

While visits home for the Pakistani families’ were more infrequent due to the cost of

travel, the cultivation and nurturing of language and religious identities is central in

maintaining intimate relations transnationally and in Ireland. This was particularly

significant, where mothers did not have proficiency in English, and felt isolated in the

home. Maraam Mum explains: ‘I say [to Maraam], 'you go to school, you talk

English, you going everywhere you talk English’ but if you want to talk with me,

Urdu, it is my own language, my own culture’.

Religious identity, bound up with the affective in sustaining ‘family feeling’

(Bourdieu, 1998:68), structured identities strongly for the five Muslim families in our

sample, Maraam, Bashir, Nabil, Haadi and Amira and for three of the Christian

families, Elena, Serena and Niesha. Ana and Grazina’s families had a weaker or no

attachment to a religious identity. Strong religious identity enmeshed in family

habitus is central to both the Muslim and the Christian children’s identity and sense of

themselves. Haadi explains: ‘This is a picture just to show my religion, I am Muslim

and I am proud of that’. The social networks generated through the Islamic and

Christian community at prayer and by attendance at language, Bible and Qur’an

classes are critically involved in not only reproducing religious and language

identities but provide networks of inter-generational and intra generational support

and care. Bashir’s Dad brings him and his brother to Qur’an classes at the weekend:

‘…he loves it, it makes a change for him and for [name of brother] as well … he also

loves meeting his friends there’. The majority of the children developed friendships

in their ethnic communities which sustained them and strengthened their religious,

language and ethnic identities, while working to belong in Ireland.

Children were active contributors to dynamics of inter-generational transmission

deeply embedded in family habitus. Bashir who returns to Algeria every summer

illustrates: ‘In my own country I belong there because I was born there, and here I

have lots of friends and when I'm at school I feel I belong here as well’. Bashir is very

proud of his Algerian and Muslin identity and his experiences of Ashglen, ‘an

International school’ consolidate his feelings of transnational belonging:

This is in the hall, these are flags and some religion signs, so it shows that

there are other people, not only Christians from Ireland but people from

Turkey that are Muslim or from Moldova that are Buddhists or something.

Bashir’s evidence together with the evidence of the other children in Ashglen

illustrates the importance of religious and cultural respect and recognition in schools

to their experience of feeling cared for and in promoting belonging. For Niesha and

Amira, separation, loss, suffering and poverty were amplified prior to and following

migration (Ni Laoire et al, 2011). Their experiences as children of refugees

influenced their strength of affiliation to cultural identities as their attachment to the

‘parent’ country was fractured. Amira’s Dad explains:

No, I'm not choosing to come to Ireland; I come to Ireland by destiny. My life

was in danger in my country. I never go back…I am here almost ten years. I

feel safe.

While Amira’s family identify as Muslim, they are not strongly attached to the

Muslim community in Ireland and there is no strong emphasis on nurturing prior

cultural attachments or home languages. This ‘disconnectedness’ from the ‘parent’

country, Amira’s experience of separation, her subsequent reunification and the

family’s weak involvement in the wider Muslim community, shape her responses

differently from those who invest heavily in maintaining and nourishing their families

valued core ethnic identities. Amira has worked ceaselessly to belong in Ireland,

claiming she was born in a local hospital, (although born in Guinea), cultivating a

strong Dublin accent and ‘hanging out’ in the local shopping centre with her friends.

I think Amira doesn't feel like me, she came to Ireland [when] she was very

young only two years old and she has her Irish passport, maybe just the colour.

[She is] really proud to be Irish and to act like the Irish people and be what the

Irish people are supposed to be like, be in the power in this country (Amira’s

Dad, author’s emphasis).

Similarly, Niesha who has also experienced separation appears to be well settled and

feels ‘happy and safe in school’ now. Nevertheless, our data indicates that her

identity is ‘troubled’ and there would appear to be a subjugation of and a denial of her

family ethnic identity as she seeks, through psychic practices of identity suppression

(Reay and Lucey, 2003) to rework her identity in Ireland. For example, in her

conversations around her photographs, Niesha insisted that she was born in Dublin

and in this way negates the years spent with her grandmother in Cameroon. She has

changed the spelling of her name in school to reflect a similar name in English and

her friends in school are predominately majority ethnic Irish.

Niesha’s and Amira’s evolving dispositions were for the most part actively centred on

the denial of difference. They worked to build solidarity and belonging through

assimilation – and being the same as their peers. However, it is clear from Amira’s

narratives that she has been subjected to racism, and her father links her skin colour to

her positioning as ‘other’ in spite of her attempts to ‘act like the Irish’. Similarly, the

data suggests that Niesha and other ‘visible’ different children in the sample have

been subject to racism. Within the care world of their peers, solidarity appears

conditional on ‘being the same’, with dynamics of inclusion and exclusion firmly

embedded in normative ideals of ‘Irishness’ that is white and Catholic (Devine,

Kenny and MacNeela, 2008, Kitching, 2010). In these circumstances the children

placed their trust in their schools ‘anti-racism’ ethos which generated feelings of being

cared for, safe and secure in school.

The ‘love labour’ of children: supporting and connecting their parents to the wider

culture in Ireland.

The majority of the children in the study engaged in love labour through their caring

tasks (Luttrell, 2013), as well as connectors and language brokers (Orellana et al,F

2001) displaying dispositions of ‘helpfulness’ and ‘responsibility’ emanating from

‘family feeling’ (Bourdieu, 1998). Ana explains:

My brother, he's really important to me not just because he's a family member

but I care for him a lot and I am his bigger sister so I am a bit responsible for

him

They also played a significant role in mobilising families’ capitals (Devine, 2009)

connecting their families to the wider community. Their photographs displayed not

only family relationships but also the significance of peer friendships to their

happiness and in generating cultural contact in school and the community. Both

schools provided critical sites of contact with the settlement culture. Both single

ethnic friendships (both dominant and minority ethnic) and multi-ethnic friendships

were observed in class and in the playground. While single sex ethnic friendships

were typically the norm, also emerging were ethnic mixed friendships groups of both

sexes. These friendships then generated cultural contact in the community. Ana

illustrates: ‘we have picnics or go in each other’s houses and watch a movie or paint

our nails or put make up on, watch TV or something’. For some of the children,

‘hanging’ around the local green or the local shopping centre in Berrywood, going to

the cinema or in Amira’s case joining the scouts also generated friendships. As Amira

explains, showing me a photo of herself and her friend (majority ethnic): ‘With all my

friends I go to the pictures or I go to the park or I go the chipper or I go to the Spar’.

Some of the parents, in particular middle class parents, supported their children in

nourishing and encouraging these friendships. There were examples of long lasting

durable multi-ethnic networks of friends being built through pre-school, primary

school, after schools activities and in the wider community. Ana explains: ‘in

Montessori [pre-school] I met my friend Anika (East European) and our parents talked

about what school we'd go to’.

However, sites of cultural contact can also be sites of ‘othering’ and engender feelings

of anger and suffering. Being positioned as minority ethnic, involved suffering in the

community, particularly when the children and their families were victims of racism.

Bashir’s Dad described emotionally and angrily the racism to which he and his family

have has been subjected to by his immediate neighbour:

They never greet us…we did try to make a relation…we send them a dish but

if their children are playing football outside and my kids, they say, 'can we

play with you’? … they said no.

Parents, themselves often victims of racism in the community, provided their children

with ‘tactics of survival’ (Reay and Lucey, 2003). These included for example, telling

their children to ‘ignore it’. Niesha’s mother tries to remove racist remarks ‘from

[her] memory, not to think about the words’.

Love, care and educational solidarity work

Migrant parents invested considerable ‘love labour’ supporting their children’s

education (Pérez Carreón, Drake and Calabrese Barton, 2005). Middle class parents

with economic resources engaged in educational solidarity work, providing study

spaces, desks, materials and new technologies to facilitate study and supporting their

children with homework (constrained at times by English language proficiency). This

concerted cultivation of their children (Lareau 2003) included visits to the library,

drama, dance and music lessons. We see how Haadi’s dreams and aspirations for the

future emanate from his middle class family habitus: ‘My Mum and Dad at the

beginning were very interested in me becoming a doctor because most on my Dad's

side are engineers and there is only one doctor in our family’. Similarly, Bashir’s

Dad’s aspirations for him emanate from family habitus:

I dream for my kids the same thing I used to dream for myself. I prefer

technology than literature or history or geography. I think [Bashir] will be ok

for technology. I want him to have a PhD in technology.

His Dad’s orientation is reflected in how Bashir’s represents himself as an ‘expert’ in

technology in Ashglen: ‘This is a picture of Maura. She's our teacher…I always has to

fix her computer because she doesn't like things like computers’.

Observations in class of Nabil, Bashir and Haadi indicate that the volume of the

educational capital the family possess (see Table 1) combined with their commitment

and hard work in school and at home will yield long term returns for this work

(Bourdieu, 1986).

Maraam’s Mum also illustrates the migrant’s family cultural attachment to education

(Devine, 2011), aspiring for Maraam to qualify as a doctor. However, militating

against these aspirations is not only the low volume of educational cultural and

economic capital the family possess, but also Maraam’s educational/learning profile.

Interviews with her teacher together with our observations of Maraam noted her

commitment to learning, while also observing the challenges in learning she had

which she did not like being reported to her parents. She explains: ‘The only thing I

hate is exams. Sometimes they're too hard. The second thing I hate is Parent/Teacher

meetings. We get our reports - I hate that as well. They're nerve-wracking’.

Maraam’s parents unacceptance of the school’s assessment of her potential, places an

enormous burden on Maraam as the family work to ‘forge ahead’ in the Irish context.

Family habitus is also inextricably linked with aspirations and expectations in the East

European families. For example, Anna’s Mum’s habitus reflects her choice of

Ashglen for Ana. Remembering her own educational experiences in Romania as

authoritarian and restrictive, she rejects achievement oriented education for a more

holistic child-centred philosophy of education:

My hopes, I just want them to be happy. I want them to have a good education

and to be healthy and happy and to go to a good school and to have a good

life.

In comparison, while Elena’s Mum wants Elena ‘to be happy’, ‘to achieve her best’

and go to University and ‘get the chances I did not get’ she is ambivalent about the

Irish education system and criticises it as not having ‘strict discipline and standards’

in comparison to Romania. Berrywood is considered by her as a ‘strong school ‘in

comparison to another school in the area which has significantly more migrants and is

considered by her as ‘having lower standards’ due to the number of children who are

learning there through English as an additional language. Elena’s Mother’s

perspective, rooted in a disavowal of her family’s trajectory, illustrates not only the

desire for her children ‘to do well’ in the Irish educational system but also her

willingness to engage in ‘othering’ practices in relation to other migrant groups, in

order to achieve the best for her children.

However, not all the families in our study had the emotional, economic, cultural or

social capital to perform love, care and educational solidarity work in a similar way,

illustrated later in Serena’s case. All parents spoke of their difficulties in being more

fully involved in schools, time, work, language and confidence. Nevertheless,

involvement patterns cannot be equated with a lack of commitment to the education

for their children. The evidence also suggests, in some cases, parents educational

aspirations place emotional burdens on children to achieve and to please their parents,

strongly connected to the ‘family feeling’ (Bourdieu, 1998), as in Maraam’s case.

While the majority of the parents in the study were not involved in school

governance, some expressed the wish to meet teachers more often than the annual

formalised parent teacher meeting. While valuable economic and cultural capitals

(educational and linguistic) circumscribed the willingness and ability of parents to

become involved in school structures, also involved were the ‘psychological and

physical energies’ available to parents (O’Brien, 2009; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-

Orozco, 2002: 97) to invest in this form of caring on behalf of their children.

For example, Serena’s Mum struggle as a single parent, challenged by poverty, racism

and the pain of separation from her husband, exemplifies the specificity and nuanced

complexities of the intersection between economic, emotional, cultural and social

capital; and how they produce inequalities in the care system for Serena. Investment

of Serena’s Mum’s energy, drawing on her inner strengths and resources of resilience

(Reay and Lucey, 2003; O’ Brien, 2009) is in personal survival for herself and her

children:

Shoes, the day to day stuff of getting food and there's a lot of things to be

worried about, but also a lot of things where I can flip the situation around and

say ‘don't know if I'll have money tomorrow but I do know that today I have

enough in my fridge to make sure that the kids have breakfast, their lunch and

their dinner and maybe a little snack here and there

While sensitive and aware of her children’s needs, the resilience required to address

these needs were not always available to her and she found it almost impossible to

meet the schools ‘high standards’ of attendance, uniforms and attendance at parent

teacher meetings (Luttrell, 2013). As a result, Serena often missed school and there

were concerns around her punctuality, sporadic attendance, appearance and uniform.

As she had to get herself to school and look after her younger brother (highlighting

her own caring role in the family), she often looked tired and depressed...While

Berrywood seeks to care and support Serena and her brother (providing a new

uniform, liaising with the counselling services), Serena’s Mum internalises blame for

not reaching the school’s ‘high standards’ rather than the difficult emotional and

economic circumstances which structure family life:

I do feel overwhelmed at times but that feeling passes and when it does I work

my way up the line and say ‘at least I feel a little bit better right now’ then

work from there because if I feel hopeless, what's going to happen with them?

…I'm the only person that they have right now.

Serena’s conversations were imbued with pain and hurt as she struggled with her

parent’s separation, ‘I always dreamed that they would get back together so it is kind

of sad’. Threaded through these conversations was how self-identity and belonging

were mediated through stories of better times, love, play, fantasy and hurt as she

struggled emotionally to reconceptualise her sense of self in her new circumstances

(Reay, 2005a). Her narratives were shot through with the psychological bringing into

closer focus the love that sustained the family as illustrated in Serena’s vignette about

family life:

I also took a picture of my mum playing the guitar…because say if you were

kind of nervous about something, the way she would cheer us up would be

singing a song and getting us hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Conclusion

Intergenerational relations circumscribed by economic, cultural, social and emotional

capitals and the diverse migratory trajectories of the families were embedded in

practices of love, care and solidarity between parent and child. This illustrates how the

collective conditions of migrant families and their children are strongly circumscribed

by affective dimensions. The intersection between migration trajectory, class and

capitals emerged as crucial to the solidarity practices they engaged in. This was not

only in the extent to which families could remain connected to their extended families

in the country of origin but also in how migrant families invested in shaping their

identities as they strategised to improve prior conditions, through education,

employment or refuge in Ireland. Middle class economic migrants, with valued

cultural capitals (third level education) strategised to accumulate more capital for their

children at home, adding value to their children’s’ educational resources (Devine

2013). For them, the transition to third level education was a taken for granted

educational trajectory. The considerable investment by the Pakistani and East

European families in ensuring the preservation of aspects of their culture of origin,

particularly religion and language, while simultaneously investing in developing an

Irish identity for their children signalled not only the importance of their ethnic selves

but also their desire to belong in Ireland. Their children too were invested in this

process of constructing hybrid identities at home and at school in a reciprocal process

of belonging making. In contrast, as we saw, for Serena, Niesha and Amira’s families,

social and economic circumstances constrained their choices and aspirations. These

choices were deeply shot through for the children with the ‘intense affective bonds’ of

‘family feeling’ which generated in the children loyal dispositions and placed on them

an obligation ‘to act as part of a united body’ (Bourdieu, 1998).

Our research also highlighted the significant contribution of secondary care relations

(teachers and friends) and school ethos in mediating children’s affective experiences.

How care relationships are constructed in schools, however, is mediated and structured

by the wider ‘field’ of state policies embedded in assimilatory notions of integration

that shape migrant children’s trajectories in Ireland (Devine, 2013). Nevertheless,

family relations and practices were more significant in the formation of identities and

ways of belonging. This is best encapsulated by Elena who states that while she is

cared for and happy in school, family relations are more important, ‘family will always

come first … no matter what you will always be loved by your family’, echoing the

perspectives of all the children in the study.

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