Parents and school: agents of 'National' socialization?
- Autores: María José Hierro Hernández
- Localización: Estudios / Working Papers ( Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales ), ISSN-e 2341-1961, Nº. 266, 2011, 32 págs.
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Can school foster identification with the receiving country to the point that second generation immigrants abandon their parents� original national identification? To answer this question, this paper focuses on the case of Catalonia. Catalonia is an interesting case study because it has three key characteristics: first, a center-periphery cleavage; second, regional, rather than central, government is responsible for education; and third, the presence of a significant number of immigrants who moved there from other Spanish regions between the mid-fifties and mid-seventies.
Building on recent empirical works, this paper examines the impact of the language policy that has been implemented in Catalan schools since 1983. The results of the analysis suggest that even if years of schooling can increase the chances that both the children of natives and the children of immigrants develop a bi-national identification, parents� feeling of �being Catalan� is the key element that fosters Catalan oriented identification among their children. The results also provide evidence in favor of the idea that both immigrant families� economic progress and immigrant families� self-selection into neighborhoods with a moderate presence of other immigrants are decisive elements in promoting identification with Catalonia.
