Schwittek, Jessica/König, Alexandra/Ducu, Viorela (2025): Living apart together: growing up in transnational families. Families, Relationships and Societies, 14(1), 2-7. https://doi.org/10.1332/20467435Y2024D000000053

Jendrzey, Katarzyna (2024): “Behind the Scenes”: Migration as (not) a Topic in Children’s and Young Adult Books from the Perspective of Polish Lilliputian Publishers. Filoteknos, 14(2024), 177-191. https://www.ifp.uni.wroc.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Filoteknos_14_internet.pdf

Abstract: Children’s and young adult literature is seen as an astute and critical observer of societal conditions, social tensions, and processes of change, emphasizing the reciprocal relationship between literature and society. It is a medium acting as a diagnosis of the times, reflecting the real world of young readers while at the same time having the ability to question and deconstruct it. In this context, it is unsurprising that societal issues such as migration are increasingly being used as central motifs in children’s and young adult literature. Numerous analyses deal with this topic, with many considering books as an access point to experiences and objects of investigation. However, the production level is often overlooked. This article takes an alternative approach by adopting the perspective of children’s and young adult book publishers, who act as key figures in the field of literary production and whose decisions play a decisive role in shaping the range of literature on offer. Based on twelve interviews with Polish publishers belonging to the so-called Lilliputians, the study examines how publishers perceive migration as a literary theme. The analysis follows the methodological principles of grounded theory and identifies three central patterns of interpretation that explain why migration is considered a “difficult narrative” for Polish children’s and young adult literature. Migration is seen, on one hand, as a peripheral topic for Polish society and as a topic existing outside children’s world of experience, and on the other hand as a socially and politically tense and threatening issue. The analysis shows how children’s and young adult literature either incorporates or omits social phenomena and in doing so can have a deconstructive effect that could initiate social change. However, this transformative function of children’s and young adult literature has so far been used only to a limited extent, particularly regarding the topic of migration.

König, Alexandra/Schwittek, Jessica/Jendrzey, Katarzyna (2024): “Good childhood”: children’s perception and evaluation of transnational families. Frontiers, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2024.1470541

Abstract: In public debates, transnational families are portrayed as a deviation from the norm of “good childhood.” In Europe, this is emphasized by the term “Euro-orphans,” branding parents’ (especially mothers’) absence as a violation and scandalizing it. Children’s voices are rarely heard in public discourse, and although research is now turning its attention to the “stayer children,” they and their perspectives on transnational family life remain underrepresented, especially in Europe. In a German-Polish project, we investigate how children perceive and evaluate transnational family life based on 27 group discussions with 12-14-year-olds (with and without own transnational family experience) in Poland. The analysis shows that (1) the presence of parents is central to the normative pattern of a good childhood from children’s perspective, but (2) they use differentiated criteria when assessing (temporary) parental migration, i.e., they do not refer to “universal” needs of children. Additionally, (3) children request that they be informed about the migration-decision early on and involved in the organization of the time of separation to make it as acceptable as possible for them. Thereby, they offer interpretations of transnational families that contribute to erode the norm of good childhood. We see our paper as a sociologically and socio-politically relevant contribution to expanding the discussion on transnational families, both from the perspective of children who discuss and problematize transnational family life as more than merely a question of violating the norm of parents’ presence, and with our focus on the European region, which provides specific contextual conditions for transnational families.

Zając, Justyna (2023): Motyw samotności we współczesnej literaturze dziecięco-młodzieżowej poświęconej migracjom zarobkowy. Annales UMCS Sectio N Educatio Nova, 8, 277-293.

English title: Motif of Loneliness in the Contemporary Children-Adolescent Literature Devoted to Labor Migration

Abstract: Books that focus on the topics of the consequences of Polish people’s labor migration introduce young readers to the issues related to the functioning of transnational families and present pictures of migration seen from the children’s perspective. This article analyses selected literary narrations for children and adolescents. The analysis shows the unsettled and broken relations of parents with their offspring, and how harmful this loneliness may be to the youngest.