Immigrant families in France and their experience of professionals’ prejudice against their children

ABSTRACT

Among social policies in France, those concerning childhood are primarily aimed at populations living in deprived neighbourhoods where immigrant families live side by side with disadvantaged native French single mothers, disabled workers and long-term unemployed families. However, immigrant families are ‘captives’, and they can neither move easily due to lack financial resources nor access private housing markets because some private landlords refuse to accept immigrant tenants. This article is based on in-depth studies using parents’ life-stories, family case histories and semi-structured interviews with professionals carried out in various French cities. It was found that immigrant families, most of whom come from former French colonies (North Africa, Black Africa), have expectations about the French health, social and school systems. The future of their children is at the heart of their migration project. This paper shows how these families report making sacrifices for their children to achieve success in French society, in spite of the risks of living in poverty. But one unexpected risk lies in the prejudices of some professionals against their children. The paper sheds light on how immigrant parenting in France is still shaped by colonialism and class, and how it influences the policy response with various consequences.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrant families
• family case history
• education
• professional prejudice
• norms
• biographical experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine Delcroix

Catherine Delcroix is Professor of Sociology at Strasbourg University and is researcher at the Laboratory « Dynamiques Européennes » CNRS/UdS (UMR 7367). In her PHD (1985), she has studied the political participation of women in Algeria and Egypt. Her approach of the Muslim world and then of immigrants coming from the Maghreb in France and in the rest of Europe is socio-anthropological. She is using life stories, observation and she builds family cases stories. She has been studying comparatively in Europe the contexts, situations and actions of migrant's families against precarious conditions (risks of unemployment, racism, school failure of their children…).

Some of her main publications are « Ombres et lumières de la famille Nour. Comment certains résistent à la précarité?”, Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 2001, 2005, 2013, Paris, “Biographical Research as a Cognitive and Practical Approach for Social Workers“, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, (ISSN 1438-5627) (with Léna Inowlocki), vol. 9, n°1, 2008, “Two generations of Muslim women in France. Issues of identity and recognition”, Södertörns Högskoda University College (éditeur universitaire), Södertörn Lecture 3, 2009, ISBN 978-91-86069-02-5, “Muslim families in France: creative parenting, identity and recognition”, in Oral History, autumn 2009, Volume37, n°2, pp.87-93.