Caractériser les trajectoires de jeunes de quartiers populaires : une analyse par les récits de soi.

The result of recent collective participatory research (ANR Pop-Part 2017-21), this text focuses on the trajectories of young people from working-class neighborhoods in the Paris region. Contrary to the polarization of media and even sociological perspectives on two complementary figures in the educational trajectories of young people from working-class neighborhoods, with the rarity of exceptional trajectories doubling the failures and difficulties, the aim here is to highlight the heterogeneity of social and educational trajectories in working-class neighborhoods. Against a backdrop of increasing complexity in the transition to adulthood, which also concerns young people from working-class neighborhoods, we examine the socially situated ways in which young people tell their story. Understanding the heterogeneity of these trajectories implies a fine-tuned approach to social positions, crossing social origin, family configurations and gender, as well as intergenerational migration trajectories and religious practices. The first part presents four ideal-typical ways of recounting one’s career in an interview, illustrated by several portraits, which help to bring out contradictions in the narrative, and proximities or porosities between ways of recounting one’s career. The second part shows the fine differences between these young people’s positions in the social arena, in order to grasp the effects on their relationship with the world.