"We Have to Think of Cars and Schools": Separated Family Members Leveraging Opportunities Through Their Communication

• In Event: 33.078 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 33.078-13 - Telling Our Own Stories: Counternarratives in and About Families, Communities, and Schools

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of 25 women immigrants of varying nationalities in Washington State and how they communicated within their transnational families. Through an extended case study I examined how education in separated family members built bonds through information and communication technologies (ICTs) and its effects on their social and economic mobility. The higher the education level the more likely it was for the women immigrant participants to not only communicate and “bond” with away-family more regularly and through diverse media, but they used their online presence to “bridge” into valuable U.S. networks. There are a number of implications for educational practices and policies.

Author

• Sondra Cuban, Western Washington University