Biographical narratives of immigrants: construction and intergenerational transmission of school experiences

Resumo

This article presents the major findings of an investigation whose general purpose is to analyze the representations around schooling in biographical accounts by migrants who reside in poor urban fringes, in order to explore the relationships between their own educational trajectories and those of girls and boys under their care. To construct data, a qualitative methodological strategy was devised with the use of semi-structured biographical interviews with adult migrants who live in a vulnerable neighborhood in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and who are parents or take care of girls and boys in elementary school. Data analysis was based on the guidelines provided by the grounded theory. This article develops the main results of the study, organized in three dimensions: educative experiences of the adults; schoolings of children; intergenerational transmission of experiences. Conclusion is that migrants from popular sectors construct and transmit intergenerationally their school experiences going through several social tests and identity discontinuities, in which changes occur in the meanings and the articulations of logics of action: integration, strategy, and subjectivation. The educational trajectory takes a central role as a primary element of support to the family migratory project, consolidated as a shared effort.