Parental involvement and educational success in Kosovar families in Switzerland

While some children of immigrants experience intergenerational upward social mobility, others do not. This paper explores the impact of parental and family involvement on offspring trajectories by contrasting families whose children experienced a highly mobile path, achieving tertiary education, against families whose children experienced low or no educational mobility. Focusing on within-group differences, the qualitative study analyses interviews conducted with twenty young persons and one of their parents in Kosovar families in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2013. Findings from our dyadic data reveal that educational outcomes are not only associated with parental educational attainment in the country of origin but also with professional mobility in the country of destination. This association is mediated by parenting styles, involvement and practices. While all parents show an important emotional involvement in their children’s educational trajectory, significant within-group differences in the Albanian-speaking group appear with respect to their parenting styles, parental school involvement and resource mobilisation. We show that educational success is associated with an authoritative parenting style practised by parents of different educational background. By contrast, lack of educational success is common in families where parents cannot provide secure guidance to their children, whatever their previous educational achievement.