Conference Program

As the Italian second generation has expanded in recent years, research on the trajectories of university students with migrant backgrounds has increased accordingly. Yet empirical evidence remains fragmented and often focuses on single dimensions of the student experience. As Italian universities become increasingly diverse social environments, the lived experiences of these students offer an important vantage point from which to analyse integration pathways through educational aspirations, everyday practices, and the structural constraints that shape them.

While existing literature has examined educational inequalities (Heath & Brinbaum, 2007), structural barriers, and academic outcomes (Giudici et al., 2021; Gabrielli et al., 2022), more recent studies highlight the agency of students who succeed despite these hurdles (Santagati, 2019) and the resources they mobilise to overcome them (Bertozzi & Lagomarsino, 2019). However, less attention has been devoted to the emotional and relational costs associated with these trajectories. Although university enrolment is widely perceived as a pathway to socioeconomic mobility, it remains shaped by obstacles that are not solely material (Bozzetti, 2018).

This contribution explores how second-generation students experience university as a negotiation between intergenerational expectations, aspirations for emancipation, and obligations toward their families. Central to this process is the tension between the “immigrant optimism” (Kao & Tienda, 1995) reflected in parents’ expectations and students’ aspirations for professional recognition and self-realization, shaped by both explicit and implicit familial demands (Fuligni, 2001).

The study draws on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Rome based on 119 interviews: 14 focus groups involving 96 young people with migrant backgrounds, 17 semi-structured interviews with key informants, and 6 interviews with parents. This material reconstructs intergenerational dialogues around future expectations, often suspended between the imperative to complete higher education and the need to enter the labour market.

Findings show that university choices are often shaped less by personal interests than by a perceived moral obligation toward the family. Many participants describe a responsibility to “repay” their parents’ sacrifices, steering them toward secure or prestigious fields despite diverging personal aspirations. These dynamics are reinforced by hierarchical family expectations that generate tensions between vocational aspirations and pressure to pursue “safe” academic pathways.

Such tensions are further intensified by the role reversal frequently experienced by second-generation youths, who often act as cultural and bureaucratic mediators for their parents. Embedded in a broader moral economy of reciprocity and obligation, this experience contributes to a strong drive for financial independence, with many interviewees self-funding their university studies.

Finally, dissatisfaction with the Italian labour market – widely perceived as lacking meritocracy and professional recognition – leads many respondents to express the desire to migrate after completing their studies. Paradoxically, the university experience often provides the cultural capital that enables this outward mobility (Della Puppa, 2018; Ricucci, 2022).

By unpacking these tensions, this contribution argues that for second-generation students the university becomes a pivotal arena where integration is negotiated not only through academic achievement but through the complex reconciliation of identity, family expectations, and aspirations for social recognition.