Momentums of success, illusio and habitus: High-achieving upper secondary students’ reasons for seeking academic success

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Through interviews with 52 upper-secondary students from different socioeconomic, educational and migrant/native backgrounds, the article examines students’ own stories of what drives them to perform well in school. Different kinds of ‘illusios’ are reconstructed in terms of Bourdieu's sociology; Revanche, Proficiency, Fear of failing and Expectations. They relate to different forms of social energy and emotions, such as the desire for rehabilitation of the self or family in the eyes of the other, and the drive for justification. Some is fuelled with social shame of not reaching the same position as parents, or meaning falling out of the system, while others are driven by an urge to be knowledgeable. These illusios work differently in relation to the students’ habitus.