Although scholarly interest in family migration is increasing, along with attention to the role of women and children in migration processes, this aspect of mobility continues to be poorly understood, particularly in the European context. Research on migration has tended to focus on primary migrants and to pay less attention to whether migrants arrive with families, resulting in a restricted picture of the impact of migration. This paper examines the presence and participation of families and children in the process of migration. It does so within the specific context of intra-European labour migration. Based on a qualitative study of migration and the integration of Polish families and children in Scotland, the paper explores changes in family structures and migration patterns that result in diverse new household migration behaviours. It argues that the locations of migrants within the European Community have become more fluid, with families being increasingly likely to inhabit more than one residence. It also argues that the uniqueness of the European setting requires a coherent theoretical focus and conceptual framework for understanding the implications of family migration. It suggests that transnational lenses generate useful empirical approaches concerning migration movements within the European Community. The paper explores transnational migration theory in relation to Polish post-enlargement migration and examines the multiple ways in which families may change through migration. It analyses the role of gender (women and men) and generations (grandparents, parents and children) in migration and settlement in the new country.

Europe1 provides an interesting site where the traditional distinction between internal and international migration is becoming less applicable. The locations of migrants within the European Community are becoming more fluid, with families being increasingly likely to inhabit more than one place of residence. Flexibility of movement within the EU provides a context in which new forms of family migration appear. As the diversity of family migration increases, the mobility experience of Europe becomes more complex (Koser and Lutz 1998; Nyíri et al.2001). There is a need, then, to examine the multiple intersections between ‘migration’ and ‘family’ in the specific context of the new Europe (Bailey and Boyle 2004: 230). As a result of demographic circumstances – including low fertility, an ageing population and related changes in the composition and meaning of ‘family’ – migration patterns and prospects in Europe are changing rapidly (Noin and Woods 1993; Rapport and Dawson 1998). Bailey and Boyle point to the rapid diversification of family and household structures in Europe ‘when cohabitation, separation, divorce and “reconstituted families” are becoming increasingly common’ (2004: 236; see also Kofman 2004); however, other cultural modes of constructing familial relations (for example single-parent families or households based on friendship rather than sexual partnership) are ignored or hardly recognised in migration studies and policy (Pine 1996: 227).

More recently concepts of transnationalism have begun to inform our understanding of migrant families (Salih 2001; Lauth Bacas 2002). Paradoxically, while growing numbers of studies show that concern for family reunification and the well-being of family members represents one of the major reasons for mobility, increasing numbers of families are separated by the decision to move and become ‘transnational’. Conventional theories of international migration tend to suggest that migrants cross borders, bringing their culture with them, and become relatively less assimilated to the culture of the host society. Glick Schiller et al. (1995: 48) argue that the migrants settle and become embedded in the ‘economic and political institutions, localities, and patterns of daily life’ of the countries that they move to. A different perspective acknowledges that they are also engaged elsewhere, involved in transactions, and having an influence over local and national events, in the countries from which they come. Those involved in transnational migration actively maintain simultaneous, multi-stranded social relations linking their place of origin and destination. These developments encourage us to rethink the notion that people and their identities are firmly linked to specific places and questioning the idea that these identities are ‘stable’ (Boyle 2002: 533).

As Castles (2002: 1157–8) argues, transnationalism has already changed the context of migrant incorporation and will continue to do so. He predicts that transnational affiliations and consciousness will become the predominant form of migrant belonging in the future. Most migration and settlement experiences retain a preliminary emphasis on some model of incorporation into the host society (whether described as assimilation, differential exclusion or multiculturalism), however an increasingly important group do not. Increasing mobility; the growth of temporary, cyclical and recurring migrations; cheap and easy travel; constant communication through new information technologies: these developments all question the idea of the person who belongs to only one nation-state or at most migrates from one state to only one other. Transnational processes are bound up in broader globalization forces with the restructuring of global capital contributing to the diminishing significance of national borders. At the same time, these moves may reflect a grassroots reaction against globalization (see, for example, Glick Schiller et al.1992; Guarnizo 1994). The multiple interconnections across international borders also point to the weakening sense of ‘nation’ conventionally defined within border, as social identities are increasingly moulded in transnational settings (e.g., Gereffi 1996). Dispersed populations construct themselves as ‘de-territorialised nation-states’ (Basch et al.1994) and labour-sending countries construct an interpretation of ‘nation’ based on the fluid locations of their migrants (Boyle 2002). These changes have led to debates about the significance of transnationalism as a new mode of migrant belonging.

Studies of transnationalism have shown that migrants maintain multi-stranded connections to their place of origin and that these continue to influence significantly the life worlds both of migrants and of those they leave behind. One issue that seems to be neglected in the transnational literature (Guarnizo and Smith 1998; Portes 2001) is how these various strands of transnational connectivity are related to one another. For example, how are economic linkages integrated with cultural and social ties? In this connection, new questions are posed, and new solutions sought, for example through the demands of caring at a distance, that are largely ignored in traditional conceptions of the family (Kofman 2004: 246). Changes in family structures and re-negotiation of roles within migrating families have been recorded in studies of transnational families, including those of the author on Polish migration to Scotland (Moskal 2010). Transnational family patterns also characterised new arrivals from Poland who had settled and worked in Scotland. Indeed, migration from Poland and the other new EU member states raises a number of issues about how we conceptualize labour migrations and transnationalism which scholars such as Morokvasic (2004), Ryan et al. (2008, 2009) along with Baláz and Williams (2004) have begun to address. In the next section of the paper I draw on research on Polish post-enlargement migration to look at the significant recent issue of transnational mobility in the context of Scotland, which is an important but perhaps rather neglected receiving region. I explore the ways in which the family changes through migration and analyse the role of children in migration and settlement in the new country.

The European Union is a migration arena in which people are free to seek and accept work in different countries. The transformation of Europe into a single market represents a significant conceptual challenge for conventional accounts of family migration. In relation to family migration the ability of people to move freely and to take up opportunities as they arise is not straightforward. The movement of the partners or children of those who seek and obtain jobs in countries other than their own may encounter some barriers, both imagined and real. For example, Ackers (2004) argues that EU social rights for those who move between countries are not universal and privilege those moving for work-related reasons. There is a lack of provision within Community law for care-related migration, i.e., migration of the non-working members of worker's families. Unpaid work does not count in work-related legislation and so care-related mobility is undervalued in the European Community. In a series of qualitative biographies, Ackers provides stark evidence of the vulnerable position of partners and children following family breakdown, which may often result in the dispersal of family relationships across space. Lopes et al. (1994), writing about the failure to recognise the significance of the family in European Community migration policy, argues that family mobility represents the interface between the individual and the social, in other words the interaction of public and private spaces. Family mobility is not only the catalyst for a new citizenship, but also the crucible of multiple belongings, and should therefore become a priority for European research and policy.

At the same time, the question of how to theorise family migration in Europe remains unclear, and, as noted earlier, migration scholarship theorises the intersection of migration and family rather inadequately (Kofman 1999, 2000). Family migration has been under-theorised because of the dominance in European states of economic migration, and official settlement migration is limited to returnees from former colonies. In addition there has been neglect of the role of the family in economic theory and the interpretation of migration as a transaction between individuals and states (Zlotnik 1995; Vatz Laaroussi 2001). Research on family migration in Europe lacks the coherent theoretical focus exhibited in case-study research from North America. There, family-related migration has been the subject of scholarly research since the late 1980s, drawing on network analysis and, more recently, on concepts of transnationalism. European scholarship has highlighted the family caught between two cultures and its problems of integration (Fernandez de la Hoz 2002), as well as the legal and policy aspects, based on normative principles of the right to family life but constrained by state regulations (Lahav 1997). Improved theorising of European family migration requires attention to empirical evidence of how family migration is experienced in the new contexts discussed above, but despite extensive research on gender and international migration (Boyd 1989; Dumond 1989; Kofman 1999), European case studies of familial strategies and migration have had little influence on theories and models of migration. Studies have focused primarily on the family unit in the receiving country and its experiences and problems of integration, on mixed marriages in receiving countries, and on legal and policy analyses of international and regional conventions and changing state regulations. A different way of understanding migrant families is to see them as fluid and as constantly being reconstituted and negotiated, adapting across spaces and through time (Foner 1997; Creese et al.1999; Vatz Laaroussi 2001; Bryceson and Vuorela 2002).

As indicated earlier, there is some evidence of growing attention to transnational families in the literature, focusing explicitly on their functioning and daily practices. However, the majority of studies still tend to have a North American focus, even though transnational families can be found in many other regions including Europe (Ackers and Stalford 2004). Women have had an increasingly important role in transnational migration as the demand for labour has grown most rapidly in sectors such as retailing, domestic labour and caring for children, the disabled and the elderly (Kofman and Sales 1996; Kofman and England 1997). Of particular interest is how and why women and men experience (trans)migration differently, and how this contrast affects patterns of settlement and return (Ho 1999; Pessar 2001). Indeed, transnational migration itself impacts upon gender relations and, more specifically, the social reproduction of gender in transnational spaces (Ellis et al.1996; Fouron and Glick Schiller 2001). As Boyle (2002: 535) observed, the majority of the work on international migration has focused on the productive sphere, often casting women migrants in the role of ‘trailing spouses’ moving to join the male ‘breadwinner’ (Yeoh et al.1999). However, this assumption has been challenged in recent years, both by research that points out that women have, for many decades, migrated alone (Morokvasic 2004) and by research that looks at more recent trends where women's work is also taken into account in migration decisions.

‘Family investment theory’ is based on a human-capital approach (Blau et al.2003) and suggests that family members negotiate work and migration decisions with the aim of maximizing the total economic gain for the family. This economic-calculation approach has been criticized (Smith 2004) for overlooking other motives, beyond economic considerations, that couples may have for migration. These may relate to quality of life and family well-being as well as the cultural and social-network opportunities offered by the receiving location. Smith points out that women may not always regard lack of employment after migration as a negative state, and may even plan for this. It could be suggested that couples who have more traditional lifestyle aims may be more likely to migrate, since for them the potential situation of one partner being unable to find employment does not present a problem.

Little attention has been given to the reproductive sphere in this work and this is being redressed gradually (Boyle 2002: 535). Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila (1997) discuss transnational motherhood and the manner in which women fulfil their role as ‘mother’, despite living in different countries from their children. Many researchers have noted that geographical distance does not mean the cessation of caring: new scholarship on ‘transnational care-giving’ is emerging, documenting how caring practices are achieved in spite of geographical distance (Reynolds and Zontini 2006; Zontini 2006). This is also an important theme in the work of Baldassar and her co-researchers in their studies of transnational migrants from Europe and Asia living in Australia (Baldassar et al.2007). The issue has been taken up in research on transnational mothering and, more generally, on the transnationalisation of the sphere of socialisation. Baldassar's account of transnational caring documents debates among transnational family members about what their migration has done to values and practices which may previously have been taken for granted. Bryceson and Vuorela (2002: 6) demonstrate how transnational migrants continue to ‘enact their sense of being part of the same family’, and they coin the term ‘revitalizing’ to describe how members of transnational families ‘work out the nature of their relationships to other family members’, as well as engaging in the construction and continual revision of one's role and family identity through the individual's life cycle’ (2002: 15).

The effects of transnational migration on children who find themselves in transnational settings are also important. For example, in the book Children of Global Migration, Parrenas (2005) attempts to show how the ideology of women's domesticity exacerbates the difficulties confronted by the children of migrant women who have been left behind in the Philippines. In this book, she shows how the children of migrant mothers feel abandoned regardless of the extensive kin support provided by their female relatives and the efforts by mothers to constantly communicate with them from a distance. Abandonment for these children is intrinsically tied to the migration of mothers simply because migration redefines mothering by disaggregating the duties of the primary caregiver from biological motherhood. She also compares the experiences of these children to those of the children of migrant fathers, thus indicating the fruitfulness of gender comparative studies.

To summarise, research concerned specifically with migrant women suggests that women's migration patterns differ from those of men in two particular ways. First, employment opportunities for women may differ, and second women more often remain closely connected with other family members in both the sending and receiving country, and are more likely to take continuing responsibility for the care of family members (Morokvasic 2004).

Following the EU enlargements from May 2004, significant numbers of workers and their families moved from the new member countries to take up employment in many old EU countries. The free movement of those people was subject to transnational arrangements to restrict migration. All 15 of the ‘old’ EU member states, with the exception of the UK, Ireland and Sweden, imposed restrictions on labour migration. The UK and Ireland opened their labour markets but restricted access to welfare benefits: only Sweden offered free movement, free access to the labour market and welfare benefits (Traser 2006). Following enlargement, significant numbers of workers and their families moved from the new member countries to take up employment and attend school in the United Kingdom. This marked the largest single wave of immigration the British Isles have ever experienced. Among these new immigrants to the UK, those coming from Poland have been the most numerous, and the most visible in the public arena. From the perspective of the UK, not only have the demographic and geographic characteristics of new incoming migration shifted considerably, but public discourses of migration have similarly altered on how long these new migrants will stay, and what impact they have had on economic growth and public services across the country (Salt and Rees 2006; Burrell 2009). As part of that movement, over 50,000 Polish nationals arrived in Scotland. The majority of these new arrivals were married men or women supporting their families in Poland with the expectation of either returning to them or bringing them over to settle in Scotland.

Although many ultimately wished to return home with their immediate and extended family, family reunification in the UK invariably provided bridges into daily life that, in conjunction with children's own integration, consolidated patterns of belonging and embedded settlement. Family reunification is not taken lightly, not only because it is a departure from home, but also because it affects flows of remittances to the extended family. Transnational families enhance and facilitate social cohesion by providing inductions into living in Britain that would not otherwise be available to new arrivals. New arrivals joining family members already settled in Britain are introduced to the cultures of belonging adopted by settled minority ethnic groups. Without the support of their own families and because of the economic commitment they have to family members ‘back home’ or elsewhere, the possibilities of belonging in Britain can be very circumscribed both because of poverty or because, without families, there are fewer organic mechanisms of integration.

Many migrants who work in the UK do not intend to settle permanently there and plan to return home in the future. They also keep in touch with their homes, living between two social spaces. They are registered in Scotland only in order to obtain a work permit and are not unregistered in Poland, because they want to keep their permanent residence there. This situation supports the concept described by Vetrovec as ‘bifocality’. Bifocality is a metaphor for the situation when the country of origin remains the source of cultural and social identification, while the host country is a source of material support and economic opportunities (Vetrovec 2004).

Post-enlargement migration from Poland presents a portrait of continuity and change. Before 2004, migration from Poland (much of it undocumented) tended to be perceived as short-term, transient and individual (Duvell 2004; Grzymala-Kozlowska 2005). Migrants were depicted as either having no dependents or as leaving dependent family members ‘back home’. However, there is evidence that this population is, in fact, not transient but settling in Scotland, bringing family members for extended periods, and becoming embedded in the host society. A recent study of Polish migration (Moskal 2007; Garapich 2008) found that not only were networks developed by recent migrants becoming more rooted in the UK, but at the same time there was evidence of the emergence of transnational characteristics associated with accelerating, circular and open-ended mobility among these new migrants. Moreover, emerging patterns indicate that many of the newly arrived Poles are developing a European identity that is contextually fluid. They undertake a strategy of keeping options open, and adapting as life goes on, not excluding going back, bringing in families to the UK, travelling the world, and moving further overseas.

So when we asked them about their plans to return to Poland we met these kinds of responses:

Don't know … I'm not able to say now … I want to come back … but don't know when … Maybe I would prefer to come back, we have a good life here, and we are not sure what is in Poland. (Moskal 2007)

Reliable data indicating the number and characteristics of migrant families in Scotland are hard to find. There is however evidence of an increasing population of Polish children in schools throughout Scotland. According to the annual Scottish Government pupil census of publicly funded schools in Scotland, the number of children of labour migrants in British and Scottish schools has increased substantially since 2002, with Poles being the largest group. Since September 2005, the number of Polish labour migrants arriving with children has increased. Polish migrants constitute a diverse group in terms of class background, parental education and skills. In 2008, there were 4,677 Polish children in Scottish schools, according to the main home language survey. Polish was the most common main home language after English and recently overtook Punjabi and Urdu. Polish was also the most common language after English in 19 out of Scotland's 32 local authorities (Pupils in Scotland 2008 2009), and Polish migrants constitute the most widely distributed minority ethnic group in Scotland.

In this part of the paper I draw on evidence gathered as part of an ongoing project concerning the integration and transnational linkages of Polish migrants in Scotland. The project involves narrative interviews with 66 Polish migrants – parents and children – in Scotland. I carried out interviews and focus groups with 25 parents (or grandparents), among them 18 women and 7 men, and 41 children (between 5 and 17 years old). The study (later called study II) has an ethnographic character: it uses in-depth interviews and participatory methods including children's drawings and mental mapping. It includes participants from different socio-economic backgrounds and types of settlement and involves people living in the urban areas of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, in the semi-urban areas of North Lanarkshire and in rural areas of the Highlands.

I also draw on data collected in 2006/2007 (study I) which was my pilot study conducted in Edinburgh and involved narrative interviews with 10 Polish migrants: five women, and five men with children, living either separately in Poland or with their parents in Scotland. It is noteworthy that all the participants, even those who were young, single and childless, were involved in family networks in diverse ways. I define ‘family’ in the broad sense to include not only household units but also the full range of inter and trans-generational relatives. For example, participants described migration as a way of joining siblings, cousins and other relatives as well as parents joining their adult children. My research reveals varied patterns of family migration and complex transnational arrangements concerning children's care.

The study finds evidence of growing diversity in Polish migratory strategies following EU enlargement as the proportion of women and children migrants increases. While my research indicates a good proportion of family reunions, it also indicates at least two different family strategies. On one hand some people prefer to improve their standard of living by relocating the entire family to Scotland to be together even though that involves higher living costs. In other cases an individual (surprisingly frequently women) comes alone to earn money to send back to the family in Poland. These people are trans-migrants who come to Britain for a short period of time, save money and return to Poland. However, many of these who initially came alone and planned to go back decided to reunite the family by relocating to Scotland/Britain. A complex experience of migration is that of Agata (31 years old, two children – interviewed during study I):

When we were decision about migration I said ‘that one is coming who knows English’ so I came because I knew English and my husband didn't. That was before the EU enlargement in January 2004, and I worked illegally in London in coffee shop. At the beginning I came for one year only but I decided to stay longer. My job in Poland was not satisfactory even though I have a university degree, and I was not able to save any money. After two years abroad I invited my children [2 and 6 years old at the moment of arrival] and my husband to join me and we moved together to Scotland because we were looking for some smaller place and safer for the children to live than London (…) I am not coming back to Poland because my children have started school here and I want them to finish school in one place.

Agata's case is not unique, and it is interesting because it shows that while family reunion remains influential in migration, women are increasingly likely to make such moves alone, not necessarily independent of decisions made within the household but autonomously, as they more likely to be acting as the main breadwinners.

They also can stimulate the mobility and the change which is illustrated by the story of Sylvia (35 years old, two children – study II):

We had some financial problems in Poland and we decided to improve our situation, and as everybody knows it is easier to do so abroad, we decided to emigrate. I wanted to try something new so I went first; even although we were talking about my husband coming first. I lived with a friend who invited us here and encouraged to come. I used his library card at the beginning to go to the library and to use the internet there. I found my first job, through the internet after 2 weeks as a cleaner; of course I couldn't start from anything else. I was employed by a Polish lady in her cleaning company. After that I went to the bank, next I found the flat, and after that I walked round the neighbourhood to find the school for my children. After two months my children and husband arrived. I am proud of myself that I coped with everything.

One pattern the present study observed which conforms to the ‘Family investment model’ discussed above (Blau et al.2003) shows women or men engaging post-migration in low-skilled work in order to assist their partner in retraining to become the long-term breadwinner. Women engaged in work to the same extent as men, and in negotiating family migration outcomes each partner's individual employment opportunities are taken into account. This is perhaps the pattern that might be anticipated for Polish migrant couples, as 43% of EU migrants currently registering with the WRS (Work Registration Scheme) are female (BIA 2007).

At the same time migrating women more often remain closely connected with other family members and are more likely to take continuing responsibility for care of family members in a variety of ways (Morokvasic 2004). Research relating to families and focusing on women and care in a non-migration context finds, in line with this, that even in dual-earner families, a disproportionate amount of informal care work and responsibility for care is taken on by women. In paid employment too, family research shows that women are more likely to work in those areas traditionally regarded as the female sphere, and particularly involving care roles:

My husband came to Scotland two years ago. After one and half years we decided that we needed to live together and that our two children needed a father. We could not live meeting only twice a year. I have been working in Poland for fifteen years. I had had a good job. So, from my point of view, the migration to Scotland signified a great risk. It was difficult to make such a decision, because I was not a young person and I hadn't learnt English before. However my husband couldn't imagine returning to Poland, because he wouldn't be able to find a suitable job there. We were thinking about the children, we wanted a better future for them, we wanted them to study. We took the risk to emigrate and I think we did this mostly for our children even though they didn't like the move because they left all their friends in Poland. My husband prepared the ground for us before we arrived: he found out about the school for the children, he rented the house. I don't work at the moment, I look after the children. I can't see that there is the job for me with my qualification, I mean I could find a job if I knew the language but I need to learn English first. I can't imagine not working because I used to work for so many years. Probably, I will need to get a cleaner's job to start my professional career here, like most of the Polish. (Irena, 40 years old, two children 10 and 14 years old – interviewed during study II)

New technology has enabled migrants to maintain transnational ties through regular and affordable communication (Wilding 2006). This kind of transnational contact and support is recognised in the migration literature and has been termed ‘caring at a distance’ (Baldassar et al.2007). With reference specifically to transnational networks from Poland to Scotland, it is important to note that respondents benefited from the emotional support and advice of relatives back in Poland. Polish respondents in my research project maintained close relationships with relatives in Poland, communicating easily and frequently using the phone, email and Skype, which enables video phone-calls, with both sides visiting regularly using cheap airlines. This behaviour is exhibited by Polish respondents in other studies (Ryan et al.2008, 2009). Whether the transnational relationships that are created in this process are maintained over the long term will be important to decisions about returning, but their effects are not predicable. Maintenance of close relationships with family in Poland, with frequent communication, may perhaps present a satisfactory permanent or long-term situation, and so may act to encourage permanent settlement. If, on the other hand, close relationships are maintained, but the contact is considered too expensive or restricting, then these relationships contribute to the wish to return to Poland to rejoin other family members:

My husband has arrived here almost three years ago, because of the financial situation in the family. He spent two years abroad alone. We did not visit him, he came home sometimes, and we were in touch by phone and by Skype later. However, the children missed him more and more and life between two houses was difficult. We wanted to be together, so I came last year in November with my youngest son [6 years old] for one week. My son liked it here very much, and when we came back home and we said that it was nice here and we decided to come and to settle in Scotland. Of course, it is a challenge for the children, different world and different people – but they like the new place. I said to them that it would be up to them to decide whether they like it here and want to stay or not. (Ewa, 41 years old, mother of three children – interviewed during study II)

Children of transnational parents are not ‘abandoned’ since parents continue to provide emotional support through regular phone calls, letters, and parcels as well as remittances. These children also often have the love and care of their extended family who assume parental responsibilities when their parents are away. My research has drawn attention to the more positive side of transnational family life, showing family resilience and the ways this adaptive strategy enables emotional and financial support for members. Indeed, sometimes it seems that geographical distance is no barrier to being close to the family and participants stressed the importance of transnational links, the ‘tightness’ of the emotional bonds, and the level of trust expected and experienced between family members. In many cases separation even makes family relations stronger by testing them, and making demands of a different kind.

Many interviewees phoned their families every day. This kind of support at a distance is well evidenced in migration studies (Baldassar et al.2007). Most of the interviewed families made at least one or two trips a year for several weeks at a time to visit family members back home because they frequently have siblings and other near relatives living in their home country.

In many cases the initial short period of separation of the family is prolonged for as much as two to three years, and during this time family remains transnational:

My immigration story: My father moved to Scotland four years ago with my older brother who finished ‘matura’ [matriculation from school] at that time. When they started doing better together with my mum who before was travelling between Poland and Scotland and was staying there for 1 or 2 months, they brought me over too. I wanted to come and live with my parents as soon as possible but I had to finish the school year. When I arrived they said that it would be only for one year but it will be three years on the 18 May that I have lived here. (Gosia, 14 years old – study II)

Moreover, transnational connections allow migrants to provide practical support, including various forms of child care-for example in Rafal's story (11 years old, child – study II). He came to Edinburgh two years ago, and lives with his mother, who came to Edinburgh five years ago. Rafal's father (who is divorced from his mother) and older brother (aged 21 years) live in Poland. Rafal spent three years in Poland with his grandparents and father:

My brother lives in Poland and used to come here for holidays, while I used to go for holidays to Poland. The first time I also came for a summer holiday to visit my mum and I wanted to stay and go to school here.

Sometimes his grandparents come from Poland to live with Rafal and his mother. After reunification the family may still rely on the support of grandparents, as in the case of Bernadetta (grandmother, two grandchildren):

We arrived here in succession, first my son, then my husband, followed by me with the grandson, and a month later the daughter with her younger child because she is divorced. We are here all together and we (me and my husband) live with our daughter and the grandchildren in one flat … I take care of children and bring them to school and back, do homework with them. I use to go for meetings to the school. My daughter went only once, she works a lot, and she doesn't have time.

Children may aid and encourage the settlement and assimilation of migrant families, even while also playing an important role in keeping parents connected to their homelands. This is especially true when an immediate family is split, with some children in each country; in those cases, as others have shown (Soto 1987; Olwig 1999), children serve as social, emotional, and economic links for households that span transnational borders. Finally, parents may sustain ties ‘back home’ because their children ask for, or seek out, such connections:

I moved to Scotland when I was 10 years old and I was very upset about this … but my parents were not able to understand that I had to create my world from the beginning, learn a foreign language and make new friends … Now, I am 13 years old and I want to come back to Poland and settle there because I miss Poland and my grandparents and cousins and friends there. (Paula, 13 years old – study II)

The integration of migrants in the host society is influenced by a number of factors, and these include several of the factors used as measures of its success: language ability, employment, housing, knowledge of culture and geography all make ‘successful’ integration more likely. The experiences of migrants recorded in this research project, as well as in other studies (e.g., Ryan et al.2008, 2009) indicate that employment is a key factor influencing integration experiences. Migrants employed in more highly-skilled work are more likely to become involved in social networks which include British non-migrants, while those in low-skilled employment and those working long or unsociable hours are less likely to form social networks and when they do these are likely to be with other migrants.

Other factors identified as important in trajectories of integration include the presence of a family or household structure. It is important to note that the presence of children will influence integration patterns (Ryan et al.2008, 2009). According to my research the presence of children among Polish migrants is a decisive factor in their long-term settlement plans:

My husband would like to settle back in Poland, he does everything to go back to Poland, of course not immediately but in 1–2 years. My attitude is rather to stay for longer. The children should not stop education in any time. If they would like to stay here later I would stay with them. (Sylvia, 35 years old, two children – study II)

Children are themselves likely to integrate quickly if they are in full-time schooling, and may act as ‘go-betweens’ for their parents. Through their children, parents may make contact with other parents, teachers and other service providers. For example, some of the Scottish schools I have visited organize special meetings for migrant parents to enable them to meet other parents and spend some time with other people. For some of the parents, especially mothers, this was their only social life:

I meet two Polish friends here; we meet sometimes but not very often. There were some meetings in my son's school organised by the Head Teacher, I had a translator. Every Thursday women from different ethnic groups met there for tea or coffee and for a chat about their country of origin, to learn something together like photography or present their national cuisine. I made ‘bigos’: the Scottish liked it, they even asked about the recipe so I gave them but I am not sure if they used it. (Ewa, 41 years old, mother of three children – study II)

The migrant children facilitate processes of settlement and community building, for example, through their work as language and cultural brokers (Orellana 2001). They assist their parents’ integration and ‘bridge the gap’. Frequently children act as translators for their parents who are not able to communicate in English:

When I came here I did not know the language at all. My teenage daughters were helping me out a lot to contact the school and the city council. The children know English from school in Poland, and I sent them to a private tutor when we arrived. I don't work here, I stay at home and the language barrier is the most important for me to adapt, it is very hard. I was taking some language lessons organised by the city council over a short period but it was not enough. (Dorota, 42 years old, mother of three children – study II)

When I arrived I had a break and from September I went to school. We had no problem with enrolment and documents because my brother speaks English (as the only person in the family at that time). (Gosia, 14 years old – study II)

Finally, the sense of identity and cultural and lifestyle expectations and the extent to which these change or are changed by the experience of living in the UK will also impact on decisions to stay or return, as well as on integration experiences. Foner (1997) and Morokvasic (2004) both emphasise the importance of the culture of the country of origin in families’ experiences after migration. The lifestyle adopted by migrant families is likely to be an amalgam of the cultural norms they have brought with them and the constraints and influences of the culture of the receiving country. Poland has a complex history, with its combination of a strong Catholic church which successfully coexisted with the communism for 40 years after World War II. Traditional family values have been maintained and family ties are strong, and even many people from younger generations remain attached to traditional practices. Understanding the values and cultural norms of Polish migrants in relation to these historical developments is important to understanding their expectations and aspirations for family life in the UK. The case of Monika and Piotr, who are parents with one child, and their attitude to first communion offers an example:

Monika: We don't go to the church, because we are usually too lazy, but now we have to come for the Sunday service because our daughter is going to have her first communion. There is a Polish Sunday service in this area.

Piotr: I just heard last Sunday that we must go to Polish Saturday Club to take her for religion lessons and to give her preparation for the first communion. She could have a Scottish communion here through the school [it is a Catholic school] however we did not want to because there is a difference between Scottish and Polish communion. The first communion preparation for the Scottish children takes only about two weeks, they get some book with pictures to complete and that is all. There should be a year to prepare her. She will go to the first communion in the cathedral in a white dress, with other children like her, not like Scottish children in a blue dress, this is not a communion. Why shouldn't my child have a Polish communion if she is Polish? In the matter of communion, it should be like in Poland.

Monika: We are attached to this tradition and the celebration with the guests and cake after.

This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of ‘family migration’ in Europe. The dispositions and practices generated by transnationalism have a substantial impact on individual and family life course and strategies, patterns of consumption, collective socio-cultural practices, language transmission and other modes of cultural reproduction. The article explores these dispositions and practices among Polish migrant families in Scotland. Transnational families challenge mainstream constructions of ‘motherhood’ (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila 1997) and ‘households’ (Olwig 1999), as well as the assumptions that all the needs of children can and should be provided by parents in nuclear families based in one community. In making decisions about leaving children, bringing them, or sending them back, adults are actively engaged in the process of developing their children towards the goals and values they hold for them. In this article I have focused on the ways in which children feature in adults’ decisions to stay, settle, or return. In most families, adults make the decisions. But the presence of the children is central to the families’ decision-making processes, and children fundamentally shape the nature and course of families’ migration experiences. Schooling and children's education in particular acts to integrate migrant parents into the wider society.

There are also multiple ways in which children enter into family migration processes. In the chain migration which is a common pattern for Polish families, one or more adults migrate first and gradually send for, or receive, other family members. Children are often the last link in the chain, following their parents who migrate either together or separately. Sometimes one parent – the mother or father – migrates first, followed by the rest of the family at a later point. It may take a few years for the families to be reunited. Whether or when the children are ‘sent for’ depends on different factors: the needs and circumstances of family members in the new country and at home; the expressed desires of the children themselves; and parents’ views of what is safe, appropriate, possible, or good for children of different ages and genders. Of course parents navigate these choices within the constraints of available resources. Parents who ‘left children behind’ are worried about them, but by working and sending money home they can provide for their children and offer possibilities for their future.

1.

The project in question is called ‘Post-Enlargement Migration, Integration and Education: Polish Immigrants in Scotland’ [RE7017] and is funded by the European Commission under its Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship Scheme. The people involved in the project are: the author, who is Principal Investigator, and Prof. Jenny Ozga.

Thanks to Prof. Jenny Ozga for helpful comments advice and support on various versions of this paper. All errors and omissions are the author's own.

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Marta Moskal is a sociologist and human geographer specialising in European Studies. She has been a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh

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