Immigrants’ children. An inquiry about teenage children of Ecuadorian and Moroccan immigrants in a quarter of Seville (Spain)

Simone Castellani, Universidad de Sevilla

Which kind of identities and strategies of adaptation adopt the so-called “second generation” of immigrants in their everyday life in a quarter of a Andalusian city? This study was originated as an attempt to try to answer this question. The research, carried out during 6 months in the “Macarena” district in Seville, has been developed with a qualitative approach: participative observation, more than 50 in-depth interviews to Secondary School youngsters, school members local NGOs that operated with immigrants in this quarter. The study of the social networks in which young people (12-17 year) develop their everyday life in the transnational community networks of the origin families, and in the out-family networks (school, same-age group…), crossed with the social variables, can help us to discern the different strategies of a multicultural integration that those children start up. In the inquiry, we take particularly into account the gender, ethnic and social-labour condition variables.