Autobiografie di una generazione Su.Per. Il successo degli studenti di origine immigrata

The book presents the research project Su.Per. (Success in Educational Pathways of students with an immigrant background). It aims at analyzing the 'unexpected paths' of immigrant-origin students who achieve excellent academic results, showing their ability to react to the possible disadvantage, overcoming obstacles and adversities. The research deal with an underinvestigated topic, involving 65 students attending upper secondary schools, differentiated by gender, place of birth (first and second generation students), citizenships and origins, school track. The educational autobiographies give voice and freedom of expression to these students, through a writing process that generates reflexivity and connects to social action, allowing them to reconstruct their meanings and logics. Success stories are placed in a theoretical-methodological framework which, on the basis of the tradition of the Chicago School and looking at the contemporary developments of 'sociology on individual scale', outlines the social and individual traits of success, as well as the family conditions and schools factors that facilitate the positive trajectories of these teenagers. Facing social expectations that consider the educational success of immigrants an exception and that expect their failure, the research investigates the agency of these young 'authors' of their own school and life experience, offering an original contribution to the study of ethnic inequalities in education from the point of view of who succeed.