‘This society has taken me’

A figuration perspective on parenting among second-generation minority Danish parents

Abstract

Based on life history interviews and fieldwork among the new second-generation minority Danish parents, this article explores differences in parenting norms and practices between these parents and the first generation of minority Danish parents. The second-generation parents find that they are more ‘engaged’ in their children and their school life compared to their own parents and contemporary first-generation parents, making them feel shaped by Danish society. The article uses Norbert Elias’ figuration theory to illuminate historical changes in and current characteristics of the relationship between children, parents, school, and state, which shapes the Danish ‘state-school figuration’. It explores how the second-generation parents’ involvement in the web of interdependencies within the state-school figuration - first as children and later as parents - makes it sensible and meaningful for them to engage in the ‘intensive parenting’ expected in Danish schools. However, for these parents, it takes the form of ‘intensive minority parenting’, as they use their firsthand knowledge from their experiences as minority children in Danish schools to protect their children from negative influences and discrimination, and due to their position as ‘established’, they take on a role as cultural mediators in relation to first-generation parents.

Keywords:

Ethnic minority parents; second generation parents; intensive parenting; the stat-school figuration; discrimination; Norbert Elias.