ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the strategy, choices and concerns behind differently textured mobilities that families with school-aged children undertake in their household relocations. The first group is the families of military personnel in the Australian Defence Forces (ADF). It presents a parallel analysis of the 32 professional and nonprofessional families we interviewed in rural/remote Queensland, to understand the interpersonal and institutional conditions under which they were prepared to come and stay in these less popular locations. Parents narrate the private troubles their children accrue in their educational trajectories as a result of institutional discontinuities, and the stress and effort around re-placing other family member's projects. The book talks back to the fields of family studies, work and career studies and sociology of education, as well as mobility studies.