Parental Engagement in the Context of Educational Childhoods: Formation and Negotiation Strategies in Families with a Migration Background (ELEN)
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Profile
- Project leadership
- Oxana Ivanova-Chessex (PHZH)
- Project team
- Lalitha Chamakalayil (FHNW School of Social Work), Luisa Genovese (PHZH), Wiebke Scharathow, Felizitas Juen (PHZH)
- Organisational unit
- F-BW-KSG (Kindheiten in Schule und Gesellschaft)
- Project phase
- In progress (1.1.2024 – 31.12.2026)
- Project type
- Research & development project
- Funding
- Swiss National Science Foundation
- Participating institutions
- Hochschule für Soziale Arbeit FHNW; PH Freiburg
Description
Education is becoming an increasingly important factor the concept of “childhoods” – not only at school, but also in family-related and out-of-school settings. Parents play a central role in the new understanding of childhoods as “educational childhoods”. However, parental participation is not the same for everyone, as it takes place in the context of (migration-related) societal power relations. Indeed power-related aspects such as racism, classicism, sexism or heteronormativity are decisive in determining which and whose educational efforts are recognised (and valued) and how self-evident this valuation is.
The project focuses on proactive education-related activities on the part of parents who have experienced othering and racism, and who actively support their children’s education under these conditions. Adopting a subject-theoretical perspective, the project examines how and in which biographical, familial and collective frameworks as well as under which societal conditions these parents’ resolute educational activities develop both within and outside educational institutions. The parents’ educational positioning and negotiating strategies in these contexts are collected in narrative interviews, family interviews and group discussions, and then evaluated in a subjective analysis.
By analysing the mechanisms driving the formation of educational engagement on the part of parents who have a migration background, the project makes a key contribution to educational research into the power structures in educational spaces. The knowledge gained will promote collaborations between educational institutions and parents that better address migration-related contexts and issues. Moreover, it is expected that a theoretical concept will arise on the basis of the interplay between societal, collective and individual aspects of these parents’ education-related agency.