“Third sector” approaches to the social integration of children with migration experience: an intersectional analysis

The development of theoretical and methodological principles of intersectional analysis made it possible to critically examine the problems of inclusion and diversity management policies in the Russian non-state educational space. This article answers the question of how an intersectional lens can improve comprehension of which way social and cultural disparities are interpreted in the process of migrant children's integration by formal agents. Using materials from a qualitative empirical study, the author attempts to critically analyze the attitudes of formal agents towards the integration process and provides a conceptual assessment of their social role and constructed educational trajectories. During the research process, empirical material was analyzed that had been collected over several years: in-depth interviews with employees of non-governmental educational organizations and non-profit integration initiatives who had experience working with children from migrant families. By identifying key intersections of the dominance matrix, we found that the domains of gender, body, ethnicity and socio-economic class can occupy primary and secondary positions in relation to each other. Thus, it is concluded that for a more detailed understanding of the causes of inequality and the production of mechanisms of discrimination, it becomes necessary not only to take into account the multiplicity of identity characteristics, but also to pay analytical attention to their position. Essentialist assessments of the identity of children from families with migration experience record the intersections of the secondary domains of gender, body, and class with the primary domain of ethnicity. The last domain is understood by informants as a “problematic” characteristic, which is targeted by practices of re-education and denial of the legitimacy of children’s cultural heritage, and this, in turn, contradicts the values of inclusive education.