Migration and Participation in Adult Education: The Matthew Effect on Immigrants

Abstract

The Matthew Effect has been one of the best known principles in adult education, implying that the ones who have more formal education at earlier phases of life participate more in education in adulthood. This qualitative research explores how the Matthew Effect works under migration, focusing on the experiences of the Turkish immigrants in Germany. The documentary analyses of the narrative interviews in the study reveal that the Matthew Effect among immigrants works depending on the formation of the immigrant habitus. The factors to mediate the making of the immigrant habitus are social and cultural capital, gender, the hysteresis effect, and affections such as expectations from the host society, biographical regrets, and the sense of belonging to the collective identity of the immigrants.