South–South Migration and Children’s Education: Expanded Challenges and Increased Opportunities

Abstract

AbstractChildren participate in, and are affected by, South–South migration in diverse ways. In terms of children’s education specifically, migration produces, mitigates, and transforms educational inequalities, with such shifts generating impacts across generations and geographies. Through two case studies on South–South migration which focus on second-generation children born to Ethiopian parents and first-generation Ethiopian children who reunited with their parents in South Africa, and children in Ethiopia whose parents are migrants in South Africa, this chapter explores migration’s nuanced impact on educational opportunities, aspirations, and attainment and how this in turn effects social mobility and inequalities. The data reveal migration produces a complex web of inequalities transnationally (i.e. between children in Ethiopia and children born of or who joined Ethiopian migrants in South Africa) and nationally (among children in South Africa and among children in Ethiopia), with such inequalities being perceived differently across generations. In the future, these inequalities, and the perception thereof, will likely constrain migration’s ability to facilitate upward social mobility for children who are affected by migration, for future generations, and for migrants’ larger networks.