Our collegue Raisa Akifeva participated in two international conferences on issues of migration

Raisa Akifeva (Centre for Youth Studies), an expert on migration and integration of migrant children in educational and extracurricular space in modern Russia, visited two international conferences recently:
First Raisa visited 17th Nordic Migration Conference in Copenhagen, where she presented a report: Transnationalism and family migration: the role of children in parental integration
and then went to Madrid on 11th annual conference IMISCOE «Immigration, social cohesion and social innovation" to talk about “After-school activities of migrant children: relations to education opportunities and outcomes”

  - Today, CYS is in the vanguard of research centers involved in research of the adaptation and integration of migrant children in Russia. That is why we just need to attend and share our experience on such major international events – Raisa says.
- In Madrid, it was very interesting. IMISCOE association (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion) has 35 organizations across Europe and more than 500 scientists as members. And the event was massive: in addition to the reports, of course, they provided workshops, round tables, books presentations on various issues of migration. I participated in the section on educational trajectories of immigrant children, and presented the results of our collective project supported by the RHSF, on extra-curricular activity of children of migrants. In my report, I was using the quantitative data from the research we recently accomplished. We wondered whether the leisure is different of migrant children from leisure activities of children that were born in Russia, how young people with different background depend on leisure preferences and practices. The empirical base of the study includes not only quantitative data, but also in-depth interviews, observations in various leisure centers and sites in St. Petersburg. And so I presented the qualitative results from the same study on another conference in Copenhagen. It was organized by a different association that deals with the migration in the northern regions of Europe. In Copenhagen conference was attended by a fewer participants, but, on the other hand, there were more plenary meetings and reports. In general, when compared to a conference in Madrid, anthropological studies were more involved in Copenhagen. I presented the research results, talked about intergenerational differences in identity, language use, how children of immigrants are included in the transnational practices of parents in Russia and how all of that affects the migration strategies and plans.