Dal "lavoro ospite" al "lavoro autonomo.".

In February 2005 it will be 50 years that the Italian and the German government signed the first contract for the recruitment of Italian guest workers in Germany. More than half a million Italian citizens have been living permanently in Germany for several decades by now. Despite these facts, our knowledge about the quality of life of this part of the German population is not very well founded. Whereas the news media and commonly held belief regard Italians as very well integrated, the few scientific reports on the schooling level reached by Italian pupils and about the professional careers of members of the second and third generation reveal that many of them are disadvantaged in comparison with other parts of the population. This article makes an effort to explain these heterogeneous findings. Firstly, the paper aims at identifying the different experiences of the first and the second generation. Secondly, the paper tries to explain how the two different generations were coping with the difficulties and the new chances of the trans- national space that has developed as a biographical structure. Thirdly, the paper refers to the outcomes of an ongoing EU project on "The Chances of the Second Generation in Families of Ethnic Entrepreneurs" in order to explain the vast social inequalities between Italian inhabitants in Germany nowadays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]