Women without a backward glance: migrant women profile from the point of lifelong learning, adaptation, employment, education, and social integration

Women without a backward glance

Abstract

Migrant women encounter new environments, opportunities, human behaviors, communication manners, traditions-customs and limitations in the country they migrate to, which may be completely different from their own countries. All these new situations create the need for employment, integration, education and social reintegration. Education of migrant women, however, has a strategic importance for the reasons such as being productive, more sensitive to society, more adaptable, and taking first-degree responsibility in the care and education of children. The aim of the study was to evaluate the views of migrant women about their lives in terms of employment, adaptation, education and social reintegration. The study adopted phenomenological research design, one of the qualitative research methods. The data were collected through the “Sustainable Personal Development-Lifelong Learning Form”. The participants were selected using the snowball sampling method and comprised 96 immigrant women in such countries as Turkey, Australia, Greece, Switzerland, France, Germany, Netherlands, and the USA. The data covered information about the reasons for their migration such as marriage, refuge, work and education have participated in the research. The data were analyzed via the content analysis method. The results revealed that the migrant women were in need of feeling safe and free, success religion, access education for their children, and lead sustainable life as an average human.