Experiencing Schooling
Experiencing Schooling

Social and Emotional Adjustment of Immigrant Students in France

Summary/Abstract: This paper draws on the author’s ethnographic research on 12–15-year-old immigrant students conducted in a “priority” middle school in France (2014–2017) and aims to explore immigrant students’ experiences of schooling and life. I focus on children “primo-arrivants” and describe how these youth are adapting to their new school environment, highlighting their specific position as pupils enrolled in two classes simultaneously – the “allophone” class and the “ordinary” one. The allophone class, officially named Pedagogical Unit for Arriving Allophone Students (UPE2A), is the class that welcomes immigrant students and provides them with intensive courses in the French language in coordination with commitments to activities in the ordinary classes. Despite the various reasons behind the decision to move to France, the students face, more or less, the same difficulties of adaptation and socialization and for many of them the beginning is difficult and painful. In this text, I will pay special attention to several aspects of their process of adjustment and propose a relevant discussion: first encounters with the host culture; integration in the school; socialization with peers; positioning in the present.

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