Youth on the Move : Tendencies and Tensions in Youth Policies and Practices

Departing from careership theory, this chapter aims to add to knowledge about school careers and school-to-work transitions of young people with a migrant background, here referring to individuals born outside or in Sweden whose parents are first-generation immigrants.1 More specifically, we want to increase the understanding of the processes resulting in a school failure, and the subsequent process when the young person tries to enter the labour market and/or strengthen his/her educational qualifications. The analysis is based on life-history interviews with 27 Swedish young adults (21–23 years old), most of them from refugee families of non-European origins. All of the respondents left school without completing upper secondary education. Few previous studies have focused on both the school years ending in dropout and subsequent careers of early school leavers, as reported by the young adults themselves (for exceptions, see e.g. Henderson et al., 2007). As discussed in the following section, political discourses, official statistics and research often portray gloomy prospects for young early school leavers generally, and those of migrant origin particularly. However, our research provides more nuanced indications, as the young adults interviewed described not only difficulties in school and later life but also factors that could facilitate their careers, particularly if schools and other institutions provided more professional and timely support.