Homeland (Dis)Integrations: Educational Experience, Children and Return Migration to Albania
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12230 |
| Published date | 01 June 2016 |
| Date | 01 June 2016 |
| Author | Elona Dhembo,Zana Vathi,Veronika Duci |
Homeland (Dis)Integrations: Educational
Experience, Children and Return Migration to
Albania
Zana Vathi*, Veronika Duci** and Elona Dhembo**
ABSTRACT
Based on empirical research conducted in Albania, this article reports that educational experi-
ence 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 find-
ing 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 educa-
tion 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 transna-
tional 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.
INTRODUCTION
Educational experience and performance have been considered key indicators of the integration and
social mobility of people of migrant background –very explicitly so in the case of the children of
migrants, or the “second generation”(Portes and Rumbaut, 2001). In a nutshell, the more success-
ful the children of migrants are at school, the more likely they will experience integration in the
labour market and social mobility in adulthood (vis-
a-vis their parents –the “first generation”).
Indeed, educational achievement and social mobility of children constitute the highest aspirations
of migrant parents (Zhou et al., 2008); although because of discrimination, high educational
achievements by people of immigrant-origin do not always translate into successful integration
within the labour market (e.g. Fibbi et al., 2007).
The focus of the literature thus far addressing the integration of children of migrants has typically
been upon educational experiences in receiving countries. The growing research on return migra-
tion, meanwhile, has pointed to cultural and institutional issues that adult migrants experience post-
return (King and Christou, 2014; Van Meeteren et al., 2014). Recent studies, however, have
suggested that adjustment of children of returned migrants to their parents’country of origin is not
plain sailing (Vathi and Duci, 2015). Yet little is known about the educational experience of these
children (but see Hamann et al., 2010). Research has been silent, overall, on the potential structural
disadvantages, and their repercussions, that children may experience when returning to their
* Edge Hill University, UK
** University of Tirania, Albania
doi: 10.1111/imig.12230
©2016 The Authors
International Migration ©2016 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (3) 2016
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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