Transnational Care Constellations and Education: im/migrant children’s family ties across borders

Abstract

Educational researchers often foreground the linguistic-cultural differences that immigrant students bring to school, overlooking the salience of legal and cultural citizenship for identity formation and classroom participation. Moreover, they usually frame (im)immigrant children as students and English language learners, or (more rarely) emergent bilinguals. This narrow framing obscures certain aspects of students’ complex experiences, with important implications for learning. This article leverages anthropological evidence to present more holistic ways of representing and discussing immigrant families’ experiences in a globalized world. This article asks: how can an anthropological perspective on transnational families help us understand how immigration shapes the educational lives of children? Thus, I address how transnational care constellations as a methodological approach contribute to ongoing discussions about equity and belonging in educational scholarship.