Abstract.We use DiPerna's and Majda's generalization of Young measures to describe oscillations and concentrations in sequences of gradients, {∇u k }, bounded in L p (Ω; R m×n ) if p > 1 and Ω ⊂ R n is a bounded domain with the extension property in W 1,p . Our main result is a characterization of those DiPerna-Majda measures which are generated by gradients of Sobolev maps satisfying the same fixed Dirichlet boundary condition. Cases where no boundary conditions nor regularity of Ω are required and links with lower semicontinuity results by Meyers and by Acerbi and Fusco are also discussed.Mathematics Subject Classification. 49J45, 35B05.