Navigating Places, Negotiating Boundaries: A Multidisciplinary Study of Migrant Children’s Educational Transitions in Sweden

The purpose of this research environment grant is to generate long-standing empirical and theoretical knowledge about how educational transitions are shaped by boundaries and places for first-generation migrant children and youth.

The project consists of three interrelated research questions: (i) What are the patterns and thresholds of educational transitions for the first-generation migrant children and youth in different places? (ii) How do structural, social and symbolic boundaries shape educational transitions for migrant children and youth, and how do these boundaries intersect with different places? (iii) How are structural, social and symbolic boundaries managed, negotiated and experienced by migrant children and youth and school actors in rural and urban areas?

We set out to do this as a multidisciplinary research team across the educational and social sciences. Our research design combines interpretative qualitative research with demographic, quantitative research.

By addressing these urgent yet intricate questions, this research environment grant will facilitate to develop theoretically-informed analyses, with clear policy relevance, about the ways in which the schooling system, places and boundaries intersect and shape the educational transitions of migrants.