Social Capital and Agency in the Peer Socialization Strategies of Migrant Children in Poland

Abstract

The transnational transitions of migrant children are complex, mobility-affected processes during which they mediate between various social fields. Their attachment to these fields is often determined by different socialization agents, among which great attention should be paid to peers and friends. Peers not only introduce a new culture and society to migrant children but also affect the young migrants’ motivation, formation of identity, and group socialization. This study adopts the theory of social capital and agency, defined by Putnam, to explore migrant children’s peer socialization strategies. It draws on qualitative research with migrant children in Poland aged 8–13, their parents, and their teachers, and is based on a child-centered approach. The findings present three main ways in which migrant children exercise their own agency to build social capital by maintaining ethnic/non-ethnic ties in the receiving country. The age, gender, and ethnic differences that appear in the application of peer socialization strategies are also revealed.

Opening Polish Schools to Ukrainian Refugee Children and Providing Them with Spiritual Support: Survey Results

“…The Polish scientific literature includes some publications on the integration of refugees (Grzymała-Kazłowska 2008;Deslandes et al 2012;Guli ńska 2021;Saturno 2023). However, only a few of them pertain to the situation in which the refugee is not an adult, but a child (Kopczak-Wirga and Kasperska-Kurzawa 2022; Popyk 2021Popyk , 2023Slany and Strzemecka 2016;Zalewska 2017;Baranowska 2020). The war in Ukraine had a very strong impact on Ukrainian children and still affects them, as they were forced to flee and came to Poland as victims of war operations.…”