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Students with optimistic outlooks, do they really succeed? Boys typically have higher self-confidence and lower stress than girls, while students of immigrant origin often have more ambitious aspirations than students of majority origin. Yet, boys and youth of immigrant origin tend to have lower grades and less course completion than other students. Their educational achievement is not what we would expect given their psychological resources in terms of aspirations, confidence, and stress. Drawing together sociological perspectives on social stratification with psychological perspectives on student achievement, we present findings* on differences in educational achievement between boys and girls, and between students with different immigrant backgrounds. Focusing on boys’ confidence and immigrant background youth’s optimism, we examine if optimistic beliefs such as aspirations and confidence are conducive of higher achievement in Sweden, and if so, the extent to which benefits apply equally to different student groups. * Please note that this is an edited version of the presentation that does not include presentations of all the parts of the research project. If you wish to receive invitations to our seminars via email, subscribe here. https://www.iffs.se/en/about-us/newsletter/ Playlists by theme: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWAw0WIZSnvrTZFgKBGwKmoJV5Y4ZoP4&si=fF8pp_he6D0GOJvb https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWAw0WIZSntraETLpASY_TCA9vqTZN8Q&si=AFNc8gtN4pP7Oa1G https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWAw0WIZSns6GsdeIWs4YzEtj2relda8&si=jYCNNVJlyqmbPbUc https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWAw0WIZSnsnb3BDRRuds0ZPGOWip4c6&si=saXGEBfLtBTE2x0U https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWAw0WIZSnvP6HCP2ys80E7c4rxqXatv&si=U6JyJHvs9-IWA3nS