Becoming Students

Abstract

Chapter 7 focuses on secular education and opens with a case study that illustrates some of the dilemmas that arose during the initial years of educational migration, including how variables ranging from gender to birth parity to political instability affect schooling opportunities. It then addresses the questions of why and how parents are sending children away for school and explores parents’ thoughts on the benefits of secular education. The chapter then analyzes educational migration within a framework of migration network theory, extends the cumulative causation argument by demonstrating how monks play a role in finding places in schools for their younger relatives, and discusses the potential for educational migration to enhance rather than reduce socioeconomic disparities.