Migrant Children in Urban Schools in Ireland

Abstract

This chapter explores the positioning of migrant children in urban schools in Ireland following a period of rapid and intensive migration. Drawing on a series of mainly ethnographic studies of migrant children’s experiences, it explores tensions between their holistic valuing and the ‘added value’ they bring through their academic and social positioning in schools. The analysis is set within the context of the wider neo-liberal global policy space and the permeation of such policy through ‘spheres of re/action’ in schools. This includes mediating tensions between migrant children’s rights and recognition through pedagogic and whole school practices. Coupled with reputational risk for urban schools where migrant children cluster, practices of mis/recognition can occur, naturalizing migrant under achievement to deficiencies in culture and identity. The chapter highlights the conditionality of migrant children’s valuing, predicated on their positive demeanor and behavior, and adaptation to programmes of intervention and ‘reform’. It considers their agentic responses as they position themselves, with peers and teachers, as well as their bridging interaction between their families and the school. As key social spaces for the construction of migrant childhoods and identities, the chapter argues for urban schooling that is radical, careful and nurturing. In its absence, the rights and well-being of migrant children is undermined, as well as the seeds sown for wider inequalities and injustices into their future lives as adults in the settlement society.