XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

89

Escaping Routes: Educational, Cultural and Economic Issues in Refugee Populations’ Integration in the Host Countries

RC04 Sociology of Education (host committee)

Language: English

The recent massive migration/refugee flows towards Europe from the eastern Mediterranean region, matched with economic crisis, disinvestment, rising unemployment and job insecurity, reductions in welfare state provisions etc., created a number of arbitrary –in both legal and theoretical terms—divisions: those divisions revolve around the dichotomy between “economic immigrants” and “refugees”. In the first case, immigration is considered as “undesirable”, whereas in the second as something “desirable”, or at least “tolerated”. However, “refugees” are not a homogenous group, which is based only on their place of birth, since their educational and occupational “pathways” are shaped by the interplay between a) the structural properties (e.g. sectoral structure of the economy) of their country of origin, as well as of their host country, b) the economic, cultural and social “capital” of their family, and c) numerous other personal characteristics (gender, IQ level etc.).

This session invited papers, both theoretical and empirical, which deal with the examination of the above issues, with special focus on:

1. the educational and training environments within which refugees and their offspring try to get the necessary credentials for social integration.
2. the differentiation between the educational trajectories of refugees, especially the first-generation ones, according to their cultural, social and economic “capital”.
3. the interplay between cultural, social and economic “capital” in their overall welfare and sense of well-being.
4. the use of their educational credentials for integration into the host-country’s labour market.

The adoption of a comparative perspective in the above issues would be highly appreciated.