Socialization Role of International Migration in School-to-Work Transition

The mail goal of the paper is to explain based on socialization framework what is the role of international migration in school-to-work transition and entering the adulthood.

School-to-work transition is more and more dynamic and time-consuming process (Furlong 1992, Hodkinson 1996). There is a life stadium in individual’s career path (Hillmert 2002). People transit from school to work in various ways looking for own identity and influenced by macro socio-economic environments (Brzinsky-Fay 2007). Occupational stabilization is a key factor of the traditional understood adulthood (Settersen 2007).

After EU enlargement in 2004, many young Poles got the possibility of free movement within the EU. Migration became an integral part of the entering the adulthood process named as a rite of passage into adulthood (Eade et al. 2007). There is a lack of literature connected effect of migration in school to work transition after return of young migrants to Poland as country of origin. Most studies concentrate on motives and socio-economic decision-making determinants to move as well as economic and social integration aboard.

The main theoretical framework is based reflexivity socialization coined by Margaret Archer (2015) as the element of the social change. Socialization is understood as long-life and long-wide process connected with taking in the same time more and more complex social roles.

The paper seeks to answer two research questions:

1. What is the role of international migration by the first job abroad in entering the adulthood?
2. How does the socio-demographic profile of migrants determine school-to-work transition?

The study is based on Qualitative Longitudinal Study (QLS) (Neale&Flowerdew 2003, Adam 2008, McLeod&Thomson 2009). By QLS the study uses time as school-to-work transition as well as entering the adulthood explanatory variable. During two waves of the research, 44 semi-structured interviews with 30 university graduates were conducted. Research participants experienced migration in school-to-work transition.