Relations between Child Poverty and New Migrant Child Status, Academic Attainment and Social Participation: Insights Using Social Capital Theory
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Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection, Colin Bell Building, School of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK
2
School of Social Work & Social Policy, University of Strathclyde, 141 St James Road, Glasgow G4 OLT, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Hal A. Lawson
Educ. Sci. 2016, 6(3), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci6030024
Received: 27 April 2016
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Revised: 19 July 2016
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Accepted: 21 July 2016
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Published: 1 August 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Place-based Partnerships and New School Designs to Address Poverty, Social Exclusion, and Social Isolation)
Currently, around one in five children in the United Kingdom and the United States live in poverty. This has a devastating effect on their wellbeing, education and broader socio-political participation, and life chances. In this paper, Scottish policy documentary data are used to discuss the effects of relations amongst categories of children in poverty, migrant child status, and academic under-attainment. The study draws on social capital and intersectionalities theory to explore some of the power and knowledge relations that are effects of policy statements. The paper concludes by suggesting that addressing the issues of poverty and educational under-attainment, including for migrant children, requires a policy strategy beyond education. Disconnections across social, cultural, and economic child policy need to be redesigned in order to change the very real socio-economic-cultural-political relations which policy produces; these relations can lead to either high levels of social participation and potential academic attainment of new arrival children or to their social exclusion. Accordingly, knowledge practices aiming to improve the socio-economic-cultural-political inclusion of migrant children make central the conditions and experiences constitutive of new migrants’ lived social lives.
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Keywords:
poverty; migrant children; social and multiple capitals; intersectionalities; relational space
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Forbes, J.; Sime, D. Relations between Child Poverty and New Migrant Child Status, Academic Attainment and Social Participation: Insights Using Social Capital Theory. Educ. Sci. 2016, 6, 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci6030024
AMA Style
Forbes J, Sime D. Relations between Child Poverty and New Migrant Child Status, Academic Attainment and Social Participation: Insights Using Social Capital Theory. Education Sciences. 2016; 6(3):24. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci6030024
Chicago/Turabian StyleForbes, Joan, and Daniela Sime. 2016. "Relations between Child Poverty and New Migrant Child Status, Academic Attainment and Social Participation: Insights Using Social Capital Theory" Education Sciences 6, no. 3: 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci6030024
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