Theorizing Belonging of Migrant Children and Youth at a Meso-Level

Abstract

This article offers a twofold contribution. On the one hand, it includes a review of the key junctions in the research landscape related to migrant children and youth by bringing together youth studies, migration studies and a child-centered paradigm with the focus on the meso-level and the concept of belonging. On the other hand, by seeing belonging as a valuable analytical framework for the integration of approaches at the tripartite analysis favoring the meso-level, the paper encourages studies to dynamically overcome the dichotomy, incompleteness and a static nature of the research conducted separately on either macro or micro levels.

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

“…Migrant children's socialization processes in the host country are shaped by both the host and home country contexts (Levitt & Jaworsky 2007;Suárez-Orozco, Marks, & Abo-zena 2015) and the impact of multiple agents which can be placed on the three levels of macro, meso, and micro (Popyk et al 2019). While the discourse on macro and micro-level socialization agents has been somewhat covered by researchers and public institutions in Poland (see Popyk & Buler 2018), the mezzo level-namely, the role of peers, friends, out-of-school activities, and neighborhoods-has been largely omitted.…”

“…To demonstrate youngsters' active participation in migration and adaptation processes, contemporary scholars have investigated how migrant children negotiate their relationships with family members (Holland et al 2007), relatives (Slany & Strzemecka 2016), teachers (Deslandes et al 2012), and peers (Holland 2009;Reynolds 2007) within transnational spaces, namely "here," "there" (Slany & Ślusarczyk 2015), and across borders (Popyk et al 2019). A bulk of work has also been dedicated to the topic of building social capital (Bourdieu 1986;Putnam 2000) and language socialization (García-Sánchez & Nazimova 2017; Duff & May 2017) at school (Strzemecka 2015;Devine 2014) or in other socialization spaces (Sime & Fox 2015).…”

The impact of distance learning on the social practices of schoolchildren during the COVID-19 pandemic: reconstructing values of migrant children in Poland

“…It is also the only place to learn and share educational practices, as many parents are unable to adequately support their children for a variety of reasons (being new themselves to the local language and school culture, their adaptations, feeling overwhelmed by their employment or legalization status, etc.). Moreover, peers and school become important socialization agents (Popyk et al 2019) and anchors in a host country not only for migrant children but also for their parents (Grzymała-Kazłowska 2018). Because of the COVID-19 outbreak and schools being shut, spaces were swapped and they stopped serving their traditional functions.…”

Built-environment attributes associated with refugee children’s physical activity: a narrative review and research agenda

“…The meso-environment is the intermediate layer beyond the immediate surroundings but within the broader neighbourhood including local schools, communities, streets and open spaces. The macro-environment involves large-scale features of urban environments such as access to transport infrastructure and regional centres [ 31 ]. Figure 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating these three layers.…”