Transnational families. History Coursework Research (Coursework Sample)

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What contexts and processes shape children's aspirations? How do school performance and community ties affect aspirations?
Different contexts directly influence children's aspirations. For instance, the stress that comes with parents leaving for the US to seek work. In most cases, children are not emotionally mature to handle this turn of events. As a result, the absence of their loved ones leads to a drop in the performance of their grades in school CITATION Lei14 \l 1033 (Abrego, 2014). In many instances, most spend their time nursing this hurt and feelings of abandonment to not care about anything else, not even their education. Additionally, some will have difficulties adapting to their loved ones' absence and end up in ways that compromise their aspirations in general and school performance. For instance, some will be rebellious in school and end up being suspended or expelled. Yet others, in their desire to fill the void left by their missing loved ones, will end up settling in underage sexual activities that may compromise their situations in schools, especially in girls who end up pregnant. Others will engage in drugs and other related criminal activities that end up hindering their aspirations.
School performance affects children’s aspirations. The children's aspirations are closely linked to their performance in schools. Many parents migrate to the US in search of jobs that will help educate their children and generally give them better living standards in the future. For this reason, many parents feel they are justified in finding ways of educating their offspring CITATION Lei14 \l 1033 (Abrego, 2014). It is thus expected that many children will be motivated by their parents' sacrifice to perform better in schools. Whereas some will take this challenge and perform better, especially where the parents' remittance is constant to keep them in school, many will be hugely affected by their parents’ living that they post dismal results in school. When this happens, the children’s only aspiration is to rejoin their parents in the US. Poor performance thus narrows their aspirations.