Migrant mothers' everyday practices in nurseries and kindergartens as a strategy for social integration.

Access to nurseries and kindergartens for children of migrant domestic workers is adual path to social integration: (a) it is a condition for their integration into the labourmarket: their children’s access to nurseries and kindergartens and the conditions underwhich this is possible to a large extent determine the mothers’ prospects of getting apaid job, (b) it shapes their perspectives on long-term settlement, which becomescontingent on their children’s performance at school. This paper discusses formal andinformal practices related to access to nurseries and schools, as well as migrantmothers’ reactions to xenophobic attitudes and behaviour by teachers and otherchildren. Migrant working mothers seem to be determined to fight for their children’saccess to nurseries and schools. Their strong commitment to achieving the bestpossible childcare on the one hand reflects traditional gender roles (it is women’s ratherthan men’s task to find care facilities) and on the other contributes to strengtheningtheir role in the household vis-à-vis their husbands