GAVIN BAILEY
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

A quick story of migrant integration...

6/30/2019

2 Comments

 
My current work is on child migrants and integration. While I’m uncomfortable with some of the terminology (especially integration), there are interesting things to be said. Here, though, I want to make a ‘signal and the noise’ argument about the way that religion or other ideas of ‘cultures’ isn’t always the most important thing going on.

I go back a few years here, to the arrival of two migrant families in my street. Both were in the UK for education of a male adult, and both had kids. One family was from a place that was once part of the British Empire, where English is an official language. The other was from the middle East, with Arabic as the home language, and the family had enough adherence to religiosity and cultural norms that the dad was a regular mosque attender and the mum stuck to Arabic attire. Further, the mum didn’t speak a word of English. On paper, the former would have been a far safer bet for integration into the local community. In the end, the opposite was true, so what else was going on?

I’d argue two things were key here, life-stage and personality. The first family had their first child not long after arrival, and were staying in. There may have been some engagement with parenting groups, but they kept themselves to themselves. The second family, however, already had two kids in nursery and key stage 1 age. This meant that the parents were doing the school runs, and having to engage with their kids’ integration. So as the children made friends, and learned English organically, the mum ended up learning some English too. Being outgoing, she also was chatty to other parents, even when her English was at its most basic, and was apologetic for this. She quickly made friends too, and the whole family were regular visitors to other homes on the block.

When the two families left to return home the difference could not have been more stark. The first family moved out without fanfare. The second family had multiple leaving parties, at their home and others, with much food shared.
2 Comments
Phil
7/1/2019 02:39:47 am

There you are, you see? Some of them just don't *want* to integrate...

Sorry, bad taste. But there's a serious point there, which is that: "integration" unpacks into a whole range of more or less pro-social behaviours; different life-course stages offer more or fewer opportunities for same; and crucially (or perhaps this is just the aspect of the argument that appeals to me personally!), some people just are less sociable than others. (There's that line about how some people get stressed alone & relax in company, but for others it's the other way round.)

The kicker is that, although it is partly determined by personality and life-course factors, the process of "integration" (a.k.a. having friends, getting on with people, having "a life") still matters - or if that's too normative, it still has longer-term effects. You can't make people act pro-socially if they don't want to, but doing so will give them - and their kids - resources that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Reply
Gavin
7/1/2019 03:03:18 am

Absolutely...

This also reminds me of some of the discussion of integration in the other direction. Some analysis of the Citizenship story presented the fact that some in society were less likely to 'mix socially with people from different backgrounds in private places'. But this was never put into the context of how much of this socialisation was present regardless of difference (or whether the different backgrounds were present).

That is, if a segment of society mix less (on average) with those of other backgrounds, it could be because a) they have a preference for avoiding the 'other', or b) they socialise less in general, or c) where they live there are no others around to socialise with.

b) is hugely connected with socio-economics and life stage... e.g. where I lived as a child we never had people round for dinner - we didn't have enough room for the five living there to be around a table, never mind guests. And I presume people with small babies spend less time being sociable than retirees

c) is a function of where and how people live: if you live in the countryside, you'll be socialising with those nearby, and that will be different to the urban/suburban...

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    January 2021
    May 2020
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    October 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    March 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact