Success against all odds

Scholars have given considerable attention to the educational pathways of the new second generation, the children of immigrants to the United States and western Europe who came of age at the turn of the twenty-first century. Social scientists on both sides of the Atlantic have consistently reported significant differences in academic outcomes among second-generation youth and across national-origin groups. Some do extra ordinarily well, yet others fail to graduate from high school. Outcomes vary systematically by group. Second-generation Mexicans in the United States and second-generation Turks in northwestern Europe tend to fall toward the low end. Researchers have studied both groups extensively because a great many of them are dropping out of high school (in the United States) or failing even to complete lower secondary education (in Europe). Despite high dropout rates, a small but visible group of young people from these backgrounds manage to beat the odds and achieve university educations. Although they may be anomalous, they are too numerous to ignore, yet researchers and policymakers continue to focus on failures.