Conference Program

This contribution presents the first results from the analysis of data collected within an ongoing ethnographic and biographical study on the school experiences of young adults of Chinese origin who experienced a transnational childhood (Baldassar et al., 2007; Bohr & Tse, 2009; Fresnoza-Flot & Nagasaka, 2015) between China (Gao & Sacchetto, 2024; Lamas-Abraira, 2019, 2023; Liu et al., 2017) and Italy (Ardizzoni & Omodeo, 2022; Costantini, 2023; Paciocco & Baldassar, 2017). The research is situated within educational studies and engages with debates on complex biographies (Ball et al., 2013), mobile childhoods (Fresnoza-Flot & Nagasaka, 2015), the school experiences of Chinese students with migrant backgrounds (Costantini, 2023; Scolaro, 2025; Paciocco, 2018), and youth agency in contexts shaped by transnational mobility (Baldassar et al., 2014; Dreby, 2007; White et al., 2011).

The study focuses on the stories of so-called left-behind children, satellite babies (Wang, 2018), and sent-back children (Bohr & Tse, 2009), young adults who spent part of their childhood in China with grandparents or extended family members before reuniting with their parents in Italy. Its aim is to examine how their educational trajectories intertwine with their experiences within the Italian school system.

Through semi-structured biographical interviews (Bertaux, 2003; Bichi, 2022; Merrill & West, 2009) with young adults aged 18–31, the study explores how linguistic transitions, school integration processes, peer relationships, and family expectations are experienced and narrated. Particular attention is devoted to identity negotiation processes, dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and the redefinition of aspirations over time – yesterday, today, and tomorrow – across transnational spaces.

Methodologically, the study adopts a student voice perspective that recognises youth agency and their active role in knowledge production (Lundy, 2007). This approach is strengthened through participant-generated visual methods, such as the Self-Portrait (Bagnoli, 2009) and the Language Portrait (Busch, 2018).

Interview analysis combines a thematic approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006) with a biographical reading inspired by Bertaux (2003) and an analysis of identity dynamics within narratives following Demazière and Dubar (2000). Preliminary findings are interpreted through the concept of assemblage (Youdell & Armstrong, 2011), in dialogue with the ecological perspective on human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1986) and the life-course approach (Elder, 1977). From this perspective, educational trajectories are not understood as the linear outcome of structural determinants nor as the simple result of individual choices. Rather, they can be interpreted as ecological assemblages in which family dimensions (linked lives), temporal dimensions (the timing of migration), local contexts (schools, peer groups, relationships with teachers), national frameworks (educational policies), and transnational connections (family, friendship and media networks) coexist and co-constitute one another (Ball et al., 2013; Elder, 1977; Fresnoza-Flot & Nagasaka, 2015).

Preliminary findings suggest that agency, identity, and aspirations cannot be treated as decontextualised categories detached from the transnational experiences of “here” and “there”. These ecological assemblages acquire educational value when they become explicit and open to dialogue within a pedagogical perspective. The situated complexity of these life stories calls for further reflection on transnational care and education as a key issue in addressing educational inequalities.