Seconde generazioni in una scuola di Torino : la riuscita scolastica come costruzione sociale

Second generations in a Turin school: the social construction of scholastic success
Foreign pupils in Italian school constitute a structural, increasing presence. Their outcomes are the result of a multidimensional process, influenced by several individual and social factors. Not only the family migratory project and the different conceptions of scholastic education, but also didactics, assessment techniques, gender and expectations of adolescents and teachers must be considered in order to explain the immigrant students’ results. The case study shows how a secondary school in Turin tries to avoid the «ghettoization» by intercultural programs, cooperation with other educational agencies, strict criterions to pass the students. The fifteen-years-old pupils with lower sociocultural status can obtain prestige in the peer group by a kind of opposing culture, but often drop out of the school and lose the opportunity of upward social mobility.