Effects of immigration on women's education. “Here they wake you up to a different way of thinking”

Abstract

Immigration is a process that allows an individual to acquire capitals linked to attributes of education: knowledge, abilities, attitudes and values. Intrastate migration is a major phenomenon in Mexico that is dominated by women. In 2010, Yucatan was the state with the most internal movement. We applied a four-stage model to analyze migration among nine immigrant Maya women in Merida, the capital of Yucatan, during 2011. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Using this theoretical basis and content analysis, we identified types of capitals and their relationship to attributes of education, and how the studied women had used them during their rural-to-urban migration. Emphasis was placed on the Instability and Establishment stages, and the adjustments they made in their new urban environment. Immigration is clearly an element of informal education that allowed the studied women to develop new decision-making skills and ways of appreciating themselves.