Between two shores: crises of values and upbringing practices among Moroccan immigrant families in Andalusia, Spain

Abstract

Moroccan and Spanish cultures have lived side by side in Andalusia for over five centuries, from the time of Al-Andalus. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the recent waves of migration brought on by globalisation, a new encounter is taking place in Andalusia between these two cultures from opposite shores of the Mediterranean. In this context, Moroccan families who have settled in Andalusia need to construct their personal identity within very different cultural scenarios from their own. This paper presents a qualitative analysis based on four case study families of Moroccan origin who have taken up residence in Andalusia. This multiple case study seeks to gain an insight into the upbringing practices and values used by parents. It also describes conflicts, expectations and strategies used by Moroccan adolescents, who participated in this study, in the constructing their identity in Andalusia.

Keywords:

• Morocco
• Spain
• Muslim youth
• family practices
• upbringing

Acknowledgements

This project has received essential support from non-governmental immigration support group – Málaga Acoge – and several primary schools in the region of Andalusia. This study would not have been possible without them.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Cristóbal Ruiz-Román http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7749-4596

M. Teresa Rascón http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9635-7228

Notes

1. Project funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (EDU09654) entitled ‘The social integration of immigrants schooled in Spain. From immigration to citizenship’.

2. http://malaga.acoge.org/

3. This also happens in many non-migrant families too. It is common in the gendering of family life that fathers work longer hours out of the home than mothers and hence have less contact with their children (García 2013; Figueroa and Urrutia 2016).

4. In any case, it is common also for non-immigrant parents to experience challenges in helping their children with school homework because of changes in the curriculum, technology and how subjects are taught which mean things were very different decades ago when parents were at school (Martín 2010; Calderón 2014).

Additional information

Funding

This study has been carried out as part of a R&D project financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [grant number EDU2009-09654].