Navigating intergenerational trends Children of migrants reiterating and resisting social vulnerabilities in Berlin-Neukölln

This ethnographic study explores how everyday practices within shifting social and systemic formations contribute to the reiteration or resistance of low levels of education and social marginalization across the generations. The focus is thereby on the multiple influences that impact how the children of migrants socially navigate in and between the family, neighborhood, school environment and sociopolitical sphere in the marginalized yet rapidly changing district of Berlin-Neukölln, Germany. The interaction between the children and these influences are explored by focusing on the immediate present and the interlocutors’ observable actions and reactions to unfolding circumstances. The past remains influential, yet the immediate present highlights how social and structural elements interact and, at times entangle, push or coerce students and their families into educational choices that negatively impact future aspirations and educational trajectories. The research reveals that despite the opening of structural opportunities, the sociopolitical forces at play – such as discrimination and social control – stand in the way of optimally seizing educational prospects. These forces present obstacles to futures through education and seizing opportunities beyond the perceived safety of migrant-dominated spaces.