The hidden trials undergone by students from sub-Saharan Africa during their immigration and training at a University of applied sciences in Switzerland

This paper revisits the results of the doctoral thesis in Educational Science by Graber (2013). Migration from the South to the North is a contemporary reality and not without repercussions for the world of vocational training, which is confronted with a number of different intercultural situations. This paper focuses on the trials undergone by students from sub-Saharan Africa during their experience of migration and training in universities of applied science in French-speaking Switzerland and more specifically what they define as a second learning process. The trials and tests that any immigrant student may have to face are discussed. On the methodological level, biographical interviews and internships involving these students have allowed us to define standardised ordeals or tests and the hidden trials which confront them during their vocational training. In conclusion, we demonstrate that these particular trials have an effect on "the African student's profession", which is not quite the same as that of indigenous students, a phenomenon that we link to the hidden curriculum encountered by these students.