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Homeland (Dis)Integrations: Educational Experience, Children and Return Migration to Albania
Author(s) -
Vathi Zana,
Duci Veronika,
Dhembo Elona
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international migration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.681
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1468-2435
pISSN - 0020-7985
DOI - 10.1111/imig.12230
Subject(s) - homeland , centrality , context (archaeology) , inclusion (mineral) , ethnic group , social integration , sociology , locality , state (computer science) , political science , gender studies , geography , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , archaeology , algorithm , combinatorics , politics , anthropology , computer science , law
Based on empirical research conducted in Albania, this article reports that educational experience and performance, and hence, integration of the children of (returned) migrants in their parents' homeland is obstructed by structural factors linked to the educational system. A finding such as this challenges the centrality of an essentialized notion of ethnicity in models of “second generation” integration and evidences the centrality of the nation‐state, and the education system as one of its pillars, in the integration of migrants and their children. Comparative integration context theory appears to apply to the integration of children of returned migrants; yet it needs to take into account the mobile lives of migrants and their children, the transnational disjuncture between different educational systems, and the role of locality within the nation‐state. Moreover, including children in analyses of integration, in the context of education, calls for the inclusion of life‐course and scale in integration theories.