Educational Strategies of Displaced Ukrainians in Berlin and Warsaw: The Role of Transnational Opportunity Structure

This paper investigates the educational strategies of displaced Ukrainian parents regarding their school-age children who fled to Poland and Germany after the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion. The study is based on an abductive analysis of a unique longitudinal qualitative panel data set of 82 semi-structured interviews with displaced Ukrainians with school-age children in Berlin and Warsaw in summer 2022, as well as 60 and 44 follow-up interviews in spring 2023 and spring 2024, respectively. Three distinct educational strategies are identified: (1) online enrolment in the Ukrainian school system while living in the destination country; (2) exclusive incorporation into the education system of the destination country; (3) return to Ukraine and continuing the Ukrainian school curriculum on site. The extent to which interviewees endorse one strategy over the others varies between Warsaw and Berlin and between the three interview waves. The paper highlights the relevance of “transnational opportunity structure” to better understand migrant's agency and strategies of action. This is conceptualised as the set of opportunities and constraints provided by the contexts in which migrants navigate.