Higher Education and Social Mobility in France: Challenges and Possibilities among Descendants of North African Immigrants

This book explores the social trajectories and experiences of children of post-colonial immigrants in France, focusing on their paths to extreme upward intergenerational mobility. It uses life history interviews with young adults of North African immigrant background to document the everyday experience of racism within France's elite educational institutions and reveal the interlocking effects of racial processes, immigrant ancestry, class background, and gender on upward mobility. It challenges the pervasive representation of descendants of North African immigrants as unsuccessful and unable to integrate and sheds light on the experiences of the largely silent upwardly mobile members of a stigmatized minority group, highlighting the strategies used to respond to the constraints to their mobility and the importance of familial histories of post-colonial migration.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 164 pages
Publication date: 01 August 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book delves into a comprehensive sociological exploration of the social trajectories and experiences of children of post-colonial immigrants in France who are embarking on paths of extraordinary upward intergenerational mobility. The author employs life history interviews with young adults of North African immigrant background, currently enrolled in or recently graduated from the country's esteemed higher education institutions, known as the grandes écoles, to uncover largely under-researched pathways and provide a platform for high-achieving members of a population often collectively associated with challenges in integrating. This volume stands as the first sociological study to document, from an individual actor's perspective, the everyday experience of racism within France's elite educational institutions and to unveil the upward mobility experience as intricately shaped by the interlocking effects of racial processes, immigrant ancestry, class background, and gender. Challenging the pervasive portrayal of descendants of North African immigrants as 'unsuccessful' and 'unable to integrate,' this book sheds light on the experiences of the largely unheard upwardly mobile members of a stigmatized minority group, revealing the strategies employed to navigate the constraints to their mobility and the profound significance of familial histories of post-colonial migration, characterized by the previous generations' efforts, sacrifices, and resilience, in shaping these 'success stories.'

Weight: 350g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367701673