Abstract
Based on a case study, this article discusses connections between educational inequality in Brazil, transnational migration and educational upward mobility. It analyses a young woman's migration from a favela in Brazil to Germany with a focus on the educational aspirations that motivated it, that is, as a case of educational migration. It describes the social trajectories of this young woman and her family and interprets them in the context of recent socio-economic developments in Brazil, thus showing how educational inequality can drive migration. The significance of networks, as well as of migration and educational regimes that shape this trajectory, are taken into account. The analysis aims to show how migrants from disadvantaged social backgrounds actively take part in the transnationalization of education.
Highlights
Based on a case study, this article discusses connections between educational inequality in Brazil, transnational migration and educational upward mobility
The main sources for the analysis presented here are the in-depth interviews with Luciana, her parents and her two sisters, which were conducted at different places in Germany and Brazil between 2015 and 2017
Research into the educational upward mobility of migrants has often focused on the attainments of the so-called ‘second generation’, and the migration of underprivileged groups has seldom been considered to be educational migration
Summary
Following a multisited ethnographical approach (Marcus, 1995), our project collects data at different locations in Germany and Brazil as well as in different social fields: the sample includes migrants in search of a ‘better life’ as well as members of transnational social elites. She was bullied because she was perceived as black, and she was treated badly by hall monitors and other employees who thought that, being the daughter of an employee, she should not behave like the other students Her parents admit that Luciana ‘suffered a little’ during this time, and their narrative of her experiences in the private school sounds as if she underwent a difficult and painful learning process about her own social position. She worked for some months as a secretary, gave private lessons for children and attended an English course outside Campo Roxo There she met a woman whose daughter was living in Germany and was looking for a Brazilian au pair. Luciana is paying for flights and German lessons, and is helping her sister to continue her education in Germany In this way, Luciana’s attempt to access higher education through migration has become a source of social protection for her family
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