International research seminar

November 19-20, 2010
Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K, room 18.1.08

While educational migration is a fairly new phenomenon in Denmark, it is well known elsewhere, such as in Britain and France, which have a long tradition of providing education for youths from the former colonies, and the United States and Russia, which are centres of higher education for many international students. In recent years, however, educational migration has become a global mass phenomenon rather than a privilege of the select elites.

In Europe internationalization and commercialization of the educational market, combined with the need for labour in certain occupational niches for youths, have opened up new pathways for young people from developing and post-socialist countries desiring to migrate.

This seminar will focus on the role of education - broadly defined from formal education to practice-oriented forms of learning - as an integrated part of the livelihood strategies of migrants and their families and the hopes and ambitions for social and physical mobility linked to these strategies. From a cross-cultural perspective the seminar will specifically address the following questions:

• How do economic and political conditions, family support and individual resources and aspirations in the country of origin motivate young people from developing and post-socialist countries to migrate to the global north, and what role do educational ambitions play in this migration strategy?
• What kinds of qualifications and competencies do young migrants acquire formally and informally during their stay abroad? Does this international experience give them qualifications that may improve their social and economic opportunities in their home countries? And how does what the migrants experience and achieve match their own and their families' expectations of the programmes?
• In which ways do young migrants draw on local and transnational social networks in identifying their destination, in organizing their travel and migration, and in mobilizing resources necessary for establishing, maintaining and enhancing their livelihood in new locations?

Programme

Friday 19. November

09.00 - 9.20 Introduction by Karen Valentin, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University

SESSION I: EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN A MIGRATION PERSPECTIVE

09.20 - 10.10 Educated vs. Non-educated families: Long term Strategies of Mobility among Pakistanis in Denmark by Mikkel Rytter, Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics, Aarhus University

10.10 - 11.00 Emerging Talents? International Students before and after their Career Start in Denmark by Ana Mosneaga and Lars Winther, Department of Geography, University of Copenhagen

11.00 - 11.20 Tea/coffee

11.20 - 12.10 Keeping them as 'Girls': Contesting Conceptions on Filipina Au Pairs and the Danish Au Pair Scheme by Karina Dalgas, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

12.10 - 13.00 Lunch

SESSION II: EDUCATIONAL TRAJECTORIES AND GEOGRAPHICAL MOBILITY

13.00 - 13.50 Train to Export: Nurse Education in Nepal and Increased Opportunities for International Migration for Nepali Nurses by Radha Adhikari, School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh

13.50 - 14.40 Education for Migration? The Case of the Philippines by Pauline Gardner Barber, Sociology & Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University

14.40 - 15.10 Tea/coffee

15.10 - 16.00 The Role of Education in Mobile Livelihoods: Social and Geographical Routes of Young Nepalese Migrants in India by Karen Valentin, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University

16.00 - 16.50 Migrating for an Education: Family, Gender and Social Mobility among Caribbean Nurses in Britain by Karen Fog Olwig, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

19.00 Dinner

Saturday 20. November

 

SESSION III: GENERATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY IN TRANSNATIONAL EDUCATIONAL MIGRATION

09.00 - 09.50 Imagining America. The Double-Binds of the Chinese Education for Equality Reforms by Susanne Bregnbæk, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

09.50 - 10.40 The Role of Education for Cameroonian Migration to Germany by Annett Fleischer, Institute of Social Anthropology, Free University Berlin

10.40 - 11.00 Tea/coffee

11.00 - 11.50 Responsibility and Independence: Education among Greenlanders in Denmark by Janne Flora, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

11.50 - 12.30 Concluding discussion

12.30 Lunch

The seminar is jointly organized by the Migration Initiative, University of Copenhagen, and the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University.