How do Moroccan-Dutch parents (re)construct their parenting practices?: Post-migration parenthood as a social site for learning and identity

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how mothers and fathers living in culturally heterogeneous contexts learn about the practice of parenting. By applying a communities of practice perspective (Wenger, 1998; 2010) on the (re)construction of parenting practice postmigration, this study highlights the under-examined processes of social negotiation over meaning making and identity formation underlying cultural transformations within the family context. Using a discourse analytical approach embedded in an ethnographically inspired methodology, we include 1) in-depth social network interview data with 23 Moroccan-Dutch parents and 2) observational data of bottom-up parenting programme sessions taking place at participants' neighborhood-based migrant organizations. Analyses revealed how a social learning dynamic is at work when parents experience clashes at boundaries of cultural meanings. Navigating and negotiating multiple cultural frameworks in interaction with others, parents use and adopt renewed senses of belonging to claim direction in this cultural heterogeneity. As such, they re-interpret meanings in social learning interactions with others and create space to (re)construct parenting practices situated in their urban postmigration residence. This analysis exemplifies how applying a sociocultural learning approach to parenting postmigration reconsiders our understanding of parenthood as a social learning site on which renewed communities and ‘glocalized’ practices emerge.