ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines the stories which remain largely invisible in popular accounts and scholarly work on second-generation North African immigrants in France. It focuses on interviews with young adults who have gained admission into the country’s elite higher education institutions, it has documented the trajectories and experiences, and unpacked the identity negotiations and aspirations, of individuals who have represented epitomes of successful integration a la française. The book identifies a set of family-based affective and social resources which have not just shaped the educational trajectories of the respondents but also informed the symbolic significance the respondents have attached to their ‘success stories’. It shows that the young adults worked their way through the educational structure gendered stereotyping about racialized youths of post-colonial immigrant background from teachers, administrators, and classmates, to institutional practices that place youths of working-class racialized backgrounds at a disadvantage.
