Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-295). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Background Cape Verde has produced migrants over the centuries. Its history and geography have compelled males and females to leave their homeland in search of resources to invest in their family s survival and development. Literature on parental investment has evidenced the association between investment in embodied capital during infancy and early childhood and its outcomes at later stages. However, these studies seldom address migrant population. Aim This study aims to gain a better understanding of the relationship in a migratory context between parental investment in infancy and its outcomes in prepuberty embodied capital, among Cape Verdean children living in Cova da Moura, a deprived neighbourhood in Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal. Methods A mixed method s approach combining quantitative with qualitative studies - is used. The prepubertal capital of the 221 schoolchildren attending the basic school located in Cova da Moura is assessed through Anthropometry and educational records analysis. The parental investment in infancy of 75 is analysed through interviews with parents and combined documentation (e.g. health booklets, reports, legislation). Results The key findings are: 1)Children are born and raised between 1997 and 2002, a time characterized by a favourable socioeconomic development in Portugal in general and Cova da Moura in particular. 2)In spite of living in a so called deprived neighbourhood , the school children linear growth falls into the healthy range of the III NHANES growth reference, and it is slightly better than the linear growth of other groups of children measured in Portugal in late 1980s and early 2000. School-oriented cognitive development is not adequate, however. A third of the students have not a regular school performance. 3)Parental investment in infancy is significantly associated to prepubertal physical growth and school-oriented cognitive development. The size effect is, however, small.

The elite and the labour migrants live in completely different worlds: the first in middle-class suburbs and the second in shantytowns and council housing projects. Notions of 'race' and 'class', based on differences in complexion, education and wealth, contribute to the existence of these two groups of Cape Verdeans as separate entities. While the elite Portuguese Cape Verdeans are almost invisible within the mainstream society, the Cape Verdean labour migrants are highly visible because of their poor social integration. While the descendants of the elite are diluting within the Portuguese mainstream, the descendants of the labour migrants are occupying the fringes of Portuguese society and developing an oppositional identity in relation to the Portuguese mainstream. The first part of this thesis gives a detailed description of the Cape Verde archipelago and the foundations of its colonial society, and of the important issue of Cape Verdean migration. The second part presents the life of the two groups of Cape Verdeans in postcolonial Portugal and the ways the Portuguese mainstream perceive them.

[pt] A pesquisa busca compreender os processos de (re)construção identitária vividos por um grupo de estudantes cabo-verdianos no Rio de Janeiro. Identificados majoritariamente como negros e mulatos pelos brasileiros, esses estudantes vêm de uma sociedade que atribui à mestiçagem a especificidade da identidade nacional. Esse discurso, construído por uma elite que muito se apropriou das idéias de Gilberto Freyre, buscava diferenciar os cabo-verdianos das populações das demais colônias portuguesas na África, garantindo ao ilhéu o posto de segundo colonizador. No Rio de Janeiro, porém, foi possível constatar que a maioria desses jovens construiu um olhar mais crítico em relação à mestiçagem. Esse processo foi acompanhado de uma valorização de uma identidade afro-referenciada, possivelmente por influência do intenso debate sobre a implementação de políticas de identidade no Brasil. Mas as transformações vividas pelos estudantes cabo-verdianos não se limitam à identidade étnica. Provenientes de um país onde há mais habitantes fora do que dentro de seus limites geográficos, estudar no exterior significa para esses jovens não apenas estar em vias de conformar a futura elite intelectual do arquipélago, mas também construir-se como cabo-verdiano, na medida em que a adaptação a outras culturas é percebida como uma especialidade nacional. / [en] The research focuses on the identities (re)construction processes experienced by a group of Cape Verdean students in Rio de Janeiro. Mainly identified by Brazilians as blacks and mulattoes, those students come from a society where miscegenation is seen as a national identity specificity. This speech, constructed by an elite that eagerly adopted Gilberto Freyre`s ideas, intended to differentiate the Cape Verdeans from the populations of the other Portuguese colonies in Africa granting the islanders a second colonizer status. In Rio de Janeiro, however, it was possible to verify that the majority of those youngsters had developed a more critical view regarding the idea of miscegenation. This process occurred simultaneously to the valorization of an afro identity, possibly influenced by the intense debate regarding the implementation of identities politics in Brazil. Nevertheless, the transformations experimented by the Cape Verdean students can not be reduced to the ones regarding the ethnic identity. Coming from a country where there are more inhabitants outside than inside their geographical borders, to study abroad means for those youngsters not only to be in the path to become part of the archipelago`s future intellectual elite, but also to construct themselves as Cape Verdeans, since adaptation to other cultures is perceived as a national specialty.

État insulaire situé au large des côtes sénégalo-mauritaniennes, le Cap-Vert a été peuplé à partir dela fin du 15e siècle de colons européens et d’esclaves africains. Il a hérité de cette histoire, unesituation diglossique où le portugais est la langue officielle alors que le créole, aujourd’hui dénommé« langue cap-verdienne », – né des contacts linguistiques luso-africains – est le véhicule del’expression quotidienne. L’histoire de la société cap-verdienne plonge aussi ses racines dans cellede l’émigration et de la mobilité nationale et internationale. Si les conditions climatiques ont pousséde nombreux Cap-Verdiens à l’exil, aussi bien en Afrique qu’en Europe ou aux Etats-Unis, leshandicaps d’ordre structurel ont, par ailleurs, favorisé les migrations constantes des îliens à l’échellemondiale.À partir d’enquêtes menées aussi bien au Cap-Vert qu’en France, sont étudiées les différences decompétences langagières entre des Cap-Verdiens ayant acquis leur(s) langue(s) dans chacun deces pays. L’analyse s’appuie essentiellement sur leurs parcours personnels et accorde une attentionparticulière aux formes de bilinguisme des uns et des autres. Les observations, qui portent a priorisur le créole, le portugais et le français, prennent en compte des productions orales spontanées etprovoquées et des productions écrites, car elles sont révélatrices de la compétence orale. / Island state located off the Senegalese-Mauritanian coast, Cape Verde was inhabited from the late15th century by European settlers and African slaves. He inherited this story, a diglossic situationwhere Portuguese is the official language while Creole, now called « Cape Verdean language », -born of Luso-African language contacts – is the vehicle of everyday expression. The history of CapeVerdean society is also rooted in that of emigration and national and international mobility. If weatherconditions have prompted many Cape Verdean to exile, both in Africa than in Europe or the UnitedStates, structural handicaps have also favored the constant migrations of islanders worldwide.Through surveys conducted both in Cape Verde and France, are studied differences in languageproficiency between Cape Verdean who acquired their languages in each of these countries. Theanalysis is based primarily on their personal journeys and pays particular attention to the forms ofbilingualism of each other. The study, which focuses at first on Creole, Portuguese and French,include spontaneous and induced oral productions, and written productions, which are indicative oforal proficiency.