SCIENCE, BELONGING AND FUTURE POSSIBILITY: A NARRATIVE CASE STUDY OF A SECOND-GENERATION ALBANIAN STUDENT IN GREECE

Joseph Xhuxhi

Abstract


This article explores how Alba, a 19-year-old second-generation Albanian student living in Athens Greece, narrates school science, wider schooling and future educational possibility within the Greek education system. Building on the framework proposed by Altunbas, Mulcahy and Reiss (2024), the study combines self-determination theory with Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus and field. The study is a qualitative single-case, participatory narrative inquiry based on semi-structured interviews with Alba, her mother Ana, and a contextual interview with Sister Maria, a Catholic religious sister whose congregation supports Albanian and other immigrant families in Athens. Narrative analysis shows that the case is organised around four tensions: strong Albanian identification alongside practical attachment to Athens; educational aspiration shaped by family sacrifice but constrained by high-stakes examinations and economic limits; school belonging produced through multicultural peer life but weakened by institutional neglect; and a relationship to school science marked by early practical curiosity but later passive teaching, limited laboratory work and almost no institutional use of STEM language. The analysis argues that science education was not rejected because it lacked value. Rather, science failed to become a meaningful field for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Science capital remained thin because it was weakly present in in-home networks, school trips, teacher practices, community support and institutional guidance. The case extends research on Albanian-origin youth in Greece by placing school science within broader narratives of citizenship, language, belonging, religious-community support, institutional recognition and social mobility.

Keywords


Albanian immigrant students; Athens; science education; STEM aspirations; narrative inquiry; self-determination theory; Bourdieu; science capital; bicultural identity

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v13i8.6854

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