The academic success of migrants' children in France is explored, with an emphasis on the family characteristics that may determine such an outcome. "How can the surprising academic achievement of a minority of migrants' children who gain admission to university be explained? According to our hypothesis, such an explanation should be found in the families' migration trajectories. Taking them into account allows one to correct the well-known deficient indicator of social origin: father's occupation when in France. Families' strategies and mobilization toward an educational project, part and parcel of their migration project, can thus be explained. This hypothesis has been tested through the interviewing of two [predominantly Algerian] groups of migrants' children of the Lille region, one having experienced school failure, the second having gained admittance to university." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

The merits of a biographical approach to demographic analysis are examined using survey data. "The analysis of complex interaction between diverse phenomena, using bivariate or multivariate models has been elaborated, and it allows the discovery of various types of dependence between events (reciprocal or unilateral) or of their independence. At this stage, heterogeneity of the observed populations was introduced, with the help of parametric or semi-parametric models, which point out the different strategies followed. The problems caused by non-observed heterogeneity have been partially solved but interdisciplinary collaboration would now appear to be necessary." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND GER AND SPA)