Children of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities: An Overview and Conceptual Framework. Innocenti Occasional Papers. The Urban Child Series, Number 5.

In Western Europe, internal and international migrations have generated vulnerable populations, notably an increasing number of children and young people of "foreign" parentage. Their problems are not specific to one ethnic group but derive from sociocultural processes and from situations of social relegation. Case studies based on a literature review provide profiles of the situation of migrant families and children in the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Each study discusses political and ideological attitudes toward immigrant groups, the historical context of migrations, and key aspects of relevant legislation. The social and ethno-cultural situations of major migrant groups are examined, focusing on family and household data, school performance, nutrition and health status, youth employment, and encounters with the law. The studies indicate that a growing number of children are being affected by divided families, "commuter" or cyclical migrations, the feminization and racialization of poverty, informal-sector employment, formation of ghettos, and loss of hope. Although migrant children have lower educational attainment than "indigenous" children with similar socioeconomic characteristics, the same migrant populations fare differently in different host countries. There is an urgent need for the European community to adopt a new social agenda in which migrants and their children figure prominently. This paper contains 81 references. (SV)