Social Advancement through Education: On Intergenerational Negotiations of Upward Social Mobility Experiences in Migrant Families

Germany has low levels of upward mobility by international standards. Nevertheless, some studies suggest that the generation of the children of migrant workers exhibits a pronounced orientation to social advancement through education. Using individual biographical narrative interviews and guideline-based narrative family discussions, the study explores how social advancement through education and status-related transformational demands are biographically processed both individually and intergenerationally and what impact this has on the intergenerational and gender relations, the affiliations, and the support structures in migrant families. The project contributes to the debate over the influence of migration and social mobility on the reproduction and transformation of family, intergenerational, and gender relations. Furthermore, it contributes to the development of research on social mobility from a subject-oriented perspective based on biographical analysis.