Anthropology of Migration and Education Across the Americas: Conceptual Developments

Abstract: Immigration is an enduring and increasingly widespread phenomenon throughout the Americas, generating new questions for scholars of education. In this essay, we first provide a general and necessarily brief overview of global trends in migration and education. We then propose five conceptual lines of inquiry, drawn from sociocultural anthropology, in an effort to develop a significant line of inquiry of growing importance throughout the region: the anthropology of migration and education. We offer examples, taken from our own research and that of others, to exemplify the conceptual points. In conclusion, we indicate some of the outstanding questions for anthropologists of education to tackle.