The Educational Choices of Adopted Students

Students with an adoptive background are in a condition of multiple intersectionalities with an overlap of different identities: adoptive, ethnic, ability, which puts them in a position of possible multiple discrimination. They are often SENitized and schools often employ didactical tools specifically thought for students with SLD missing crucial issues such as the effects of PTSD and attachment difficulties, ignoring the hardship to deal with fragments of the past that need integration with the present. The medical determinants seem so overrepresented underestimating any other identity component. To better assess critical issues and actual resources of such students and their social environment, our work investigates their educational choices in comparison with those of their adoptive parents and how this data possibly differs from research on intergenerational educational mobility in Italy. The aim is to better understand the outcomes of such choices and formative paths. In the present work we offer the initial results of a wider research that proceeds qualitatively by two different tools, one intended for parents and one other for adoptees. The results we describe regard the answers collected in a brief period from parents, who adopted children born before 2002 in NA or IA, involved via an avalanche sampling, randomly distributed, without statistical significance. Questionnaires were distributed with closed and open CAWI questions. The tool intercepts the educational goals and achievements of adopted students and pupils form the point of view of their adoptive parents. Particular attention is devoted to critical issues in high school years, post-diploma education, first job experiences.