This article discusses two relatively underexplored topics in international migration research: place attachment processes and staying intentions in the new place of residence. The analysis is based on findings from semi-structured interviews with internal and international labour migrants in two rural Norwegian municipalities. In a study that primarily focused on migrants’ local social inclusion and belonging processes, several migrants on their own initiative brought up and elaborated on the importance of local material aspects (nature, climate, and localisation) and lifestyle options for their local contentment and staying aspirations. The interviewee accounts suggest that numerous factors can influence staying intentions, including social ties, work/career opportunities, local materiality, and lifestyle opportunities. By focusing on processes of place attachment, the findings bring to light some of the mechanisms that may lay behind the common proposition within international migration research that length of residence makes return less likely. The findings on these processes highlight how local contentment—and by extension staying aspirations—can change over time, thereby connecting the usually separated fields of migration and post-migration processes. Moreover, the findings show how local place attachment may also influence international migrants’ aspirations/decisions of internal migration within the new country of residence. Finally, the centrality of lifestyle for staying aspirations and place attachment in these labour migrants’ accounts underline a call by lifestyle migration researchers for increased attention to the role of lifestyle in all kinds of migration. The article’s conclusion notes the findings’ relevance also for urban settings.
Purpose:
This article explores the question:
what shapes young refugees’ often high educational aspirations
? A sense of mastery and future hope are among the numerous factors that can positively predict school achievements. High aspirations may thus contribute to both young refugees’ improved educational outcomes and wellbeing.
Method:
We discuss findings from semi-structured interviews in three Norwegian upper secondary schools in light of theories and research into the often high educational aspirations of immigrant youth.
Results:
Several of the study’s findings support the dual frame of reference theory which has been used in prior discussions of migrants’ aspirations. However, we argue that aspirations can be supported not only by comparisons with the country of origin, but also by comparisons with different stages of the refugee experience.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest that temporal aspects of high aspirations should be empirically and theoretically explored further. Moreover, this and other studies’ findings on young refugees suggest that research into the educational aspirations of young immigrants should address/control for migration category.
Ethnic residential segregation is often explained with the claim that 'immigrants don't want to integrate-they prefer to stick together with co-ethnics'. By contrast, mixed neighbourhoods are seen as crucial for achieving social cohesion. In line with spatial assimilation theory there is a normative assumption that people interact with those living nearby. From interviews on neighbourhood qualities and locations valued by Oslo residents of Turkish, Somali and Polish backgrounds, we raise questions about the validity of two assumptions: that most immigrants want to live in the same neighbourhoods as coethnics; and that they want to live close to co-ethnics because they do not want to integrate. For reasons of socialisation, main preferences were for mixed neighbourhoods that included ethnic Norwegians. Whereas the preference for people of other immigrant backgrounds was linked to possibilities for socialisation, the preference for ethnic Norwegians in the neighbourhood was linked to possibilities for social integration. Coethnic networks could be maintained on the city level. Importantly, housing moves tended to be guided by other factors than population composition in the area.
Tolerance and equality are widespread norms in the official policy of many European countries. The educational system is an arena which even more than others is meant to foster equal opportunities by giving individuals the opportunity to strive for social mobility through their educational performance. Despite this, young people from ethnic minority backgrounds experience different forms of stigmatization in school and higher education, ranging from feeling marked as different to experiencing more explicit racism. This article analyses young people's coping strategies in order to combat or avoid such stigmatization. We will analyse the possible reasons why young people choose a particular strategy in a given situation, how successful that choice is, and changes in their choice of strategies over time. We will discuss how earlier experiences of support, encouragement and respect (or the lack thereof) inform the extent to which young people choose more approaching than avoiding strategies as a response to perceived ethnic stigmatisation in the educational setting. The empirical basis of the article is a sample of 50 biographical interviews with young people of ethnic minority backgrounds living in Norway.
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