Influencia de factores externos en el consumidor

The migrant students had quite different experiences of their previous schools depending on where they came from. The students from Romania and Ukraine all mentioned the different timetables the schools in their country of origin followed, and described the fact that there had been more break time and that they were allowed to leave the school without permission. They also said that the schools in Spain were generally easier, since there was less work and the teachers explained more. Contrary to these experiences of students coming from Eastern Europe, Marcial and Álvaro, who were from the Dominican Republic, had found that the level in their previous schools was easier than in Spain. When asked about the differences between his previous school and this one, Álvaro said that “There, we didn’t study so much” and Marcial explained that “there [at school in the Dominican Republic] are more things, more classrooms, more students. And the level was a bit easier than here.” Similarly, Ana who was also from the Dominican Republic said that she had not learnt much in her school in Santo Domingo, but since she had been in Spain since fifth grade, her experiences were not as recent as Álvaro’s and Marcial’s. Similar to the Dominican students, the remaining Latin American students also found schooling in Spain more difficult than in their country of origin, but that was mainly related to the different teaching styles, the content of the classes and the accent. Alejandro recalled his memories of his school in Colombia and of arriving in a Spanish school:

The studies [in Colombia] were very different. Depending, sometimes they gave a lot of material, much more material, much more advanced. The difference is that there you study with the blackboard, afterwards you take notes, here you study with the books and then, you have to know how to study with the books, and if you don’t, they correct you a lot. Also the

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teachers are very different than there. Sometimes when you are having difficulties, they helped you a bit more... In the beginning [after having

come to Spain] you feel like in another world, you feel very strange, you

don’t understand the classes very well. Then a few weeks pass and you have already seen how the classes go. The first day is very confusing, they give you things that you don’t even know, you ask and they explain to you, the classes are very strange. xliv

Similar to Alejandro, César and Jorge, who had come to Spain from Ecuadorian schools, had also experienced some initial difficulties when starting school.

Jorge: ...It is much more difficult for us coming from one country to

another with the accent and all, in the beginning it is a problem, but then you get used to it and now the teaching is much better here.

…

César: Here, the first time I had social studies, the worst... Clara: Really?

César: Yes, because I didn’t know anything from here. Everyone asked only

about things from here, the rivers from here, all the cities. And I only knew Barcelona and Madrid, the largest cities, that was the only thing I knew. I did not know Valencia. When I got here I began to study a bit, almost only about Europe. And when you are there, almost only about America, it is different.xlv

As this illustrates also Spanish-speaking migrants may experience some initial difficulties upon entering school in Spain. The interviews, however, show that the students felt that they got over their difficulties relatively quick. This was very different from a final group of students, Gloria, Phoebe and Omar, who had all come from (poor) African countries.

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They described issues, which were different than the rest, and which illustrate that notions of easy and difficult do not always have to do with levels of learning.

Clara: And before coming to Spain, did you go to a school in Guinea? Omar: Yes, I went to a school there.

Clara: And how was it in relation to this school?

Omar: Good, we had classes, but some of them didn’t have teachers. Clara: And how many students were there?

Omar: There were 200.

Clara: And how was the level? More difficult or easier?

Omar: Different, here more or less, here it is easier than in my country,

because here we have enough teachers.xlvi ---

Clara: ...Before you came to Spain, how was your school in Nigeria?

Gloria: The school was big, there is no, lots of students there, there is not a

lot of teachers. Some in my school you have to pay money before you can go to the school and if you don’t have money if you want to eat, you can come to school sometimes and you cannot go to school sometimes.

Clara: So you couldn’t go to school all the time?

Gloria: I couldn’t go to school all the time, because my mother didn’t have

money to pay.

---

Clara: In Nigeria did you go to school? Phoebe: Everyday no.

Clara: Not everyday?

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we can pay money for one month. The next one, if we don’t pay money, we can’t go.

Research has shown, that the age of incorporation into the Spanish school system have an effect on how well students do in school. This is linked to the time it takes for students to adjust and adapt to the school system and to the differences between the schools they have come from and the Spanish school they are attending (Pereda et al. 2003a:8; Pereda et al. 2003b:108-112). The narratives of the students in my study support this very well. The contrasting experiences shown in the data, however, illustrate the diversity of students’ experiences and the many different factors that may play a role in the process of incorporation. Some students may experience difficulties due to the different teaching styles and differences in the taught material, others to the irregularity of the educational systems in their country of origin. For some, the education they received in their home country was easier than in Spain, for others it was more difficult, and finally, for a few, hard to compare, because it had been affected by a lack of teachers and poverty. The schooling experiences of the young people prior to migration thus differ significantly and this necessarily has an effect on the competences and capacities they bring with them to school in Spain.

Theme 4: Family

Contrary to the young people in Birmingham, the students in Madrid rarely mentioned their parents and family directly in relation to their feelings of going to school. From the interviews it was however clear that parents and family members influenced schooling in a number of ways, more or less directly. For young people of migrant background, their parents had, first of all, decided to bring them to Spain and they were also the ones who might potentially decide to bring them back, as I will discuss in more detail in the next

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chapter. Both processes quite obviously involve a disruption of schooling, perhaps except in the case of Gloria and Phoebe, whose schooling in their country of origin already was seriously disrupted due to their financial situation. Secondly, for some of the migrant students who had siblings at the school, family could also have a social function. Nadia, for example, spent most of her break time with her sister and her account illustrates the point made in the literature review, that siblings can provide bridges to new friendships (Holland

et al. 2007:103-104),

She [her sister] is in the other [building], but I see her every break. And she has friends, Spanish, that I already know, who are with her at break time. Because the friends, mates, that I have in my class they always go their own way, I don’t know where they go, I don’t want to go with them, so I go with my sister. And she knows more, for her it is easier.xlvii

Finally, when asked if they had someone who could help them with their schoolwork, the students often mentioned their parents or other family members, albeit not always in an affirmative way. Nadia, for example said that she didn’t have anyone, who could help her and that “at home I only have a computer and dictionaries.” She explained that she had to rely on her teachers or her sister to help her. Also Alina said that she did not have anyone to help her. She did not have any sisters and brothers and: “my mother leaves at 9 o’clock in the morning and comes back at ten o’clock at night, so who can help me?” xlviii She did however add that she didn’t need a lot of help, perhaps because, as previously mentioned, she found schooling in Spain easier than in her country of origin, Romania. Similar to her, Neculai, who also came from Romania, did not find that he needed a lot of help. If he did, he said that his father could help him. In addition, he came twice a week in the afternoon and received extra help with his homework together with other students from the bridging class. Finally, Iulian, who did not attend these afternoon classes, said that he didn’t have

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anyone to help him, because as he said, he already knew more than his mother.

These narratives illustrate two important issues relating to the possibilities of migrant parents to provide help to their children. One is the constraints that their work puts on them in terms of time. The second is that since several of the parents had only recently learnt Spanish themselves, their possibilities of helping their children with their schooling are limited. If one of the parents had been in Spain longer, he or she knew a bit more, but often the students would have to ask other family members for help, for example aunts or cousins. This could be in relation to homework, understanding the classes, and even accessing the school.

Students who had recently arrived from non-Spanish speaking countries, focused mostly on language when talking about help with school work. This was obviously not an issue for the Spanish students, but they did, similar to some of the migrant students, experience limitations to the help they could get, mainly due to their parents’ educational level, as explained by Ricardo and Celia.

Ricardo: It’s that in my house, because my parents haven’t studied, they

don’t know many things, of course, multiplying and so on. When I was younger they helped me but the things we learn now they don’t know.xlix

---

Clara: And do you have help, can your family help you?

Celia: It’s like, no, because I have a higher level than them, so, well, if I

have to give in work my mother helps me look for information, things like that, if I have to pass a test she revises with me.l

Because the school was located in a working class neighbourhood and since compulsory schooling for those under 16 only was introduced in Spain in 1990, many Spanish parents like Ricardo’s and Celia’s did not have a very high educational level. Similar to the migrant

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students, the young people therefore sometimes had to receive help from other family members, as explained here by Natalia and Sofia,

Sofia: Here in Madrid I have to ask my uncle, because I don’t have any

other person. But I know that my uncle will help me in all that he can.... He has always said to me ‘if you need help, I am here to help you.’ Always there.

Natalia: In my case, I ask mostly my sister, because she studies like me,

well, not the same, but for example she has a bachillerato in humanities, Hebrew and Latin. Well, in maths my sister doesn’t understand anything, but at least if I need help I ask my sister, because my mother doesn’t know Latin, you know….li

As these quotations show, family members other than parents can be an important resource of cultural and social capital, both for migrant and non-migrant students, albeit sometimes for different reasons. This emphasises the previously mentioned point of including wider family networks, when analysing young people’s access to cultural and social capital. The narratives provided by the students furthermore illustrate the complexity of human and cultural capital when combined with migration. The educational level of the parents of migrant students varied more than the Spanish parents. Some hardly had an education, many had some education and one had a doctorate. In the case of this specific school therefore, it is possible that migrant parents may have possessed more human capital than their native counterparts in many cases. Due to the barriers of language experienced by some of them, their cultural capital was, however, in some ways devalued (Heckmann 2008b:27) or ‘delayed’, a situation that further stresses the importance of alternative sources of help, such as extended family, school personnel and, as has been argued in this chapter, friends and mates.