Irma Budginaite

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Vilnius University

The Polish Sociological Review (PSR) is inviting proposals for guest-edited special issues (SIs) to be published in late 2025 and throughout 2026. The call is open to proposals at any stage of development and across all sociological themes, provided they contribute to emerging, current, or overlooked topics in the field. All submitted articles will...

In an increasingly globalized, digital world, the way family is conceptualized and practiced is becoming highly diversified and complex. This article investigates the evolving concept of transnational families (TNFs) and aims to elucidate the similarities and differences in how ‘transnational’ and ‘family’ are understood in the academic literature...

Drawing from a qualitative longitudinal study with young migrants from Lithuania and Poland in the UK, this chapter explores how they understand the category of social class and position themselves in the racialised British class system. It explains how young Eastern European migrants learn cues such as strategic use of perceived whiteness to negot...

Lietuvai atkūrus nepriklausomybę ir įstojus į Europos Sąjungą suaktyvėjo Lietuvos gyventojų judumas, kuris sudarė prielaidas naujoms veikloms, karjeros galimybėms ir šeiminio gyvenimo formoms. 1980–2000 m. gimusiųjų asmeninio gyvenimo planavimas vyko aplinkoje, kuri labai skyrėsi nuo jų tėvų asmeninį gyvenimą formavusios sovietmečio aplinkos. Dalyv...

The growing numbers of Lithuanian families living across borders have prompted the reflection on family relations through the lens of the need for care and support of dependent children and elderly parents. The authors of this article expand the analysis of family lives in the migration context beyond child–parent relationships and shift the attent...

Historically entrenched cultural and political divisions between East and West continue despite the fall of the Iron curtain already three decades ago. With the establishment of the Schengen zone, the inner European borders were not erased, but only pushed further East, producing varying categories of mobile bodies and citizens. Contemporary labour...

A body of recent literature has examined how migrants from Eastern European countries have been racialised in the UK both pre- and post-Brexit, and has explored the limits of their earlier assumed ‘invisibility’ owing to their perceived whiteness. Less attention has been placed on understanding how intersections of class and nationality may play ou...

In this article, we analyse how global mobility restrictions related to COVID-19 may affect Lithuanian transnational families and transnational practices of parenting. The article draws on the data from the quota-based survey, implemented while carrying out the research project ‘Global Migration and Lithuanian Family: Family Practices, Circulation...

The notion of belonging, prominent in social sciences, has been recently used extensively in relation to Central Eastern European migrants in the UK. Whereas the Brexit debates on migration have spotlighted the macro-politics of belonging and the judgments on who deserves to stay and under which conditions, the question of how these discourses of ‘...

Theme of the symposium This symposium will explore compelling issues of European identity, integration and its future by engaging concepts of race and differentiated whiteness, moving beyond the binary of white/ non-white or (single, solid) hegemonic whiteness. We will examine how racialized positions emerge, shift, are contested and negotiated rel...

Taking into account the high level of mobility among Lithuania’s population, this dissertation seeks to determine potential for the support of aging family members in Lithuania in the context of migration. This was achieved by analysing intergenerational solidarity and the expectations of support from personal networks, to assess whether and to wha...

Atsižvelgiant į didelį Lietuvos gyventojų mobilumą, disertacijos tyrime siekta nustatyti, koks yra pagalbos senstantiems šeimos nariams potencialas Lietuvoje migracijos kontekste. Analizuota kartų solidarumo raiška ir pagalbos lūkesčiai reikšmingiems asmenims, siekiant įvertinti, ar ir kiek šeiminiai ir kiti asmeniniai ryšiai gali būti aktyvuojami...

In this chapter the authors set out to examine how migrant families are named and framed in academic publications by Lithuanian researchers published from 2004 to 2017, available in Lithuanian and international academic databases. The authors aim to disclose how Lithuanian academics perceive the change of family boundaries and fluidity of family re...

In this chapter the authors examine how parenting in migration context is portrayed in the academic discourse in Lithuania. The authors reveal the depictions of migration-induced child caring practices, based on the results of analysis of academic publications (2004–2017) carried out from January to March 2018 as part of the sub-study of the resear...

This chapter is set up to incorporate Finch’s idea of ‘display’ to examine how migrant parents, adult migrant children, and close significant persons perform a set of actions to convey to each other and the society at large that these are family-doing activities. The authors sought to demonstrate that the concept of ‘display’ could be applied to an...

This report reviews research evidence from all 28 EU Member States to identify how the training and development of ECEC workers can be tailored to improve the quality of the services available for children below primary-school age in EU Member States. Among other findings, it concludes that interventions in professional development that are integra...

CEEYouth: The comparative study of young migrants from Poland and Lithuania in the context of Brexit. Combining public statistics, web survey and asynchronous interviewing This Working Paper introduces the theoretical considerations and empirical design of the ongoing research project, entitled: CEEYouth: The comparative study of young migrants fro...

We present our research findings on the profiles of ECEC assistants in 15 European countries and their professional opportunities. In particular we focus on how to create coherent pathways towards continuous professional development for working with parents and children. Several publications have underlined that quality in ECEC is dependent upon co...

This chapter examines the ways in which the experience of migration re-defines and re-organizes the relationships of transnational families in Lithuania. It employs four of C. Smart’s concepts to analyze personal life—‘imaginary’, ‘embeddedness’, ‘memory’, and ‘relationality’, and its primary source is a mixed method research study carried out betw...

This article presents the findings of an analysis of the effects of CPD initiatives on the quality of the pedagogical practices of ECEC practitioners. It is part of a larger study commissioned by Eurofound and jointly conducted by VBJK, IOE and PPMI (Eurofound, 2015). In order to draw policy-relevant information that might support decision makers i...

This article aims to examine how changes in mothering induced by international migration become transformed into ‘troubles’. Based on the analysis of 79 selected articles on transnational families published between 2004 and 2013 in national press and Internet media portals in Lithuania, along with interviews with transnational mothers conducted bet...

This chapter examines the ways in which the experience of migration re-defines and reorganizes the relationships of transnational families in Lithuania. It employs four of C. Smart’s concepts to analyse personal life - ‘imaginary’, ‘embeddedness’, ‘memory’, and ‘relationality’, and its primary source is a mixed method research study carried out bet...

There is broad consensus amongst researchers and international organisations that the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC), which means the wellbeing of children and families, depends on well-educated and competent staff. This remains a challenge in Europe, since part of the workforce is also represented by low-qualified ECEC assist...

Education policy needs to cater for diversity and enable all citizens to succeed in education and to develop their full potential according to their specific needs and irrespective of their backgrounds. However, in reality, educational inequalities are a key challenge to education systems across the EU, often linked to socioeconomic disadvantage, l...

Dans de nombreux pays, une partie du personnel est composée d’assistants d’éducation et d’accueil de la petite enfance peu qualifiés. Dans l’étude CoRe, les assistants sont définis comme des « travailleurs invisibles », ce qui signifie que leur présence n’est habituellement pas prise en compte dans lesdocuments politiques et qu’ils possèdent nettem...

At the European level, the importance of a qualified workforce is acknowledged in the revised priorities for the strategic cooperation in the field of education and training (European Commission, 2015a); it identifies professionalisation of staff as one of the key issues for further work in ECEC. In many countries, part of the workforce is represen...

The authors argue that Lithuanian society is shaped by meaning-making institutions producing knowledge about migration and migrant families. Daily life is mediated by representations of ‘low mobility’ discourse based family policy as well as “truthful” images of migrant families in press. The authors builds upon A. Strauss’ insights about the signi...

European countries face the challenges of ageing populations supported by shrinking workforces, more precarious types of employment, and in many cases, a decreasing number of jobs in the wake of the economic crisis. As a result, the issue of how to enable more people to participate in the labour market and to continue to do so until an older age ha...

European countries face the challenges of ageing populations supported by shrinking workforces, more precarious types of employment, and in many cases, a decreasing number of jobs in the wake of the economic crisis. As a result, the issue of how to enable more people to participate in the labour market and to continue to do so until an older age ha...

Global migration rapidly modifies family life in the Baltic Sea region and, for the several last decades, has presented a challenge to migration scholars. The impact of migration on a family attracts the interest of researchers not only because the number of such families is on the rise, but also because it poses certain challenges to the academic...

The focus of this report is on the impact of the working conditions and continuous professional development (CPD) of the workforce in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) on the quality of the services provided and, in particular, on the outcomes for children. The report reviews research evidence from all 28 EU Member States, incl...

This article is based on a research project conducted in Lithuania with a focus on the challenges integration children that are coming back with parents from abroad into Lithuanian schools. Authors raise such questions as: How the educational opportunities for children make impact on decision to return to Lithuania? How educational institutions are...

Straipsnyje analizuojamos su vaikais į Lietuvą grįžusių migrantų ir su jų vaikais dirbancių mokytojų patirtys. Nagrinėjamo grįžtamosios migraci­jos reiskinio įvairiapusiskumas pirmiausia atskleidžiamas pasitelkus pusiau struktūruotų interviu su mokytojais ir tėvais, taip pat grupinės diskusijos su mokytojais metu 2014 m. surinktą medžiagą ir 2013 m...

"Lithuania" was written as a separate chapter for the IOM LINET study "Migration, Employment and Labour Market Integration Policies in the European Union (2011)". Authors analyse recent trends in labour migration and the labour market position of migrants in Lithuania, reflects on the possible impact of these trends on employment and the national l...

[LT] Šiame skyriuje pateikiama Lietuvos valdžios institucijų vydytos išeivijos ir migracijos politikos apžvalga (1990-2011) ir atsikleidžiama, kaip taikytas politikos priemones vertino užsienyje gyvenantys ir grįžę emigrantai. Atliekant politikos apžvalgą, ieškoma atsakymo į klausimą, ar analizuojamu laikotarpiu valstybės institucijos skatino grįžt...

[LT] Kaip emigracijos reiškinys ir emigrantai pristatomi viešojoje erdvėje? Koks emigrantų įvaizdis dominavo ekonominio pakilimo laikotarpiu ir kaip jis pasikeitė prasidėjus ekonominiam sunkmečiui? Ar (ir kaip) kalbama apie grįžtančius migrantus? Kokie grįžtančiųjų portretai dominuoja žiniasklaidos šaltiniuose? Kaip jie vertinami? Atsakymų į šiuos...