You are asking Jackson to parse a StudentList. Tell it to parse a List (of students) instead. Since List is generic you will typically use a TypeReference

List<Student> participantJsonList = mapper.readValue(jsonString, new TypeReference<List<Student>>(){});

You have to create another class say Output as

import java.util.List;

public class Output {
    public List<Token> getTokens() {
        return tokens;
    }

    public void setTokens(List<Token> tokens) {
        this.tokens = tokens;
    }

    private List<Token> tokens;
}

and then use

Output output = new Gson().fromJson(json, Output.class);

then you can use output to get list of tokens and go further for suggestion etc

This way is worked for me:

Convert all list to String.

String element = gson.toJson(
                    groupsList,
           new TypeToken<ArrayList<GroupItem>>() {}.getType());

Create JSONArray from String:

    JSONArray list = new JSONArray(element);

Using gson it is much simpler. Use following code snippet:

 // create a new Gson instance
 Gson gson = new Gson();
 // convert your list to json
 String jsonCartList = gson.toJson(cartList);
 // print your generated json
 System.out.println("jsonCartList: " + jsonCartList);

Converting back from JSON string to your Java object

 // Converts JSON string into a List of Product object
 Type type = new TypeToken<List<Product>>(){}.getType();
 List<Product> prodList = gson.fromJson(jsonCartList, type);

 // print your List<Product>
 System.out.println("prodList: " + prodList);

Your input string should be as follows to qualify for a list of SomeObject

{
    [{
            "k1": 1,
            "k2": "v2",
            "k3": "v3"
        }, {
            "k1": 2,
            "k2": "v2",
            "k3": "v3"
        }
    ]
}

Below code should work ..

JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);
SomeObject[] objectsList = gson.fromJson(jsonObject.toString(), SomeObject[].class);

For given JSON String here you can handle this way (add toString() to SomeObject for displaying it)...

import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map.Entry;

import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.JsonElement;
import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.google.gson.JsonParser;

public class TestClass {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<SomeObject> list = new LinkedList<SomeObject>();
        String jsonString = "{\"obj_1\":{\"k1\":1,\"k2\":\"v2\",\"k3\":\"v3\"},\"obj_2\":{\"k1\":2,\"k2\":\"v2\",\"k3\":\"v3\"}}";
        Gson gson = new Gson();
        JsonObject jsonObject = new JsonParser().parse(jsonString).getAsJsonObject();
        for (Entry<String, JsonElement> entry : jsonObject.entrySet()) {
            // note entry.getKey() will be obj_1, obj_2, etc.
            SomeObject item = gson.fromJson(entry.getValue().getAsJsonObject(), SomeObject.class);
            list.add(item);
        }
        System.out.println(list);
    }
}

Sample Run

[SomeObject [k1=1, k2=v2, k3=v3], SomeObject [k1=2, k2=v2, k3=v3]]

NOTE: the value of k1 must be a number and without quotes as k1 is declared as int in SomeObject

You can convert the result to an object list, or you can pass in a type parameter rather than the List class.

String jsonString = "[{\"id\": \"0\", \"ip\": \"123\", \"mac\": \"456\"}, {\"id\": \"1\", \"ip\": \"111\", \"mac\": \"222\"}]";

With Object

List<Object> items = objectMapper.readValue(
    jsonString,
    objectMapper.getTypeFactory().constructParametricType(List.class, Object.class)
);

With SlaveEntity

List<SlaveEntity> items = objectMapper.readValue(
    jsonString,
    objectMapper.getTypeFactory().constructCollectionType(List.class, SlaveEntity.class)
);

Update

This is what I have come up with, and it works.

EntityTest

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

public class EntityTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String json = "[{\"id\": \"0\", \"ip\": \"123\", \"mac\": \"456\"}, {\"id\": \"1\", \"ip\": \"111\", \"mac\": \"222\"}]";

        for (SlaveEntity entity : jsonToSlaveEntity(json)) {
            System.out.println(entity);
        }
    }

    public static List<SlaveEntity> jsonToSlaveEntity(String json) {
        ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();

        try {
           return objectMapper.readValue(
                   json,
                objectMapper.getTypeFactory().constructCollectionType(List.class, SlaveEntity.class)
            );

        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return new ArrayList<SlaveEntity>();
    }
}

BaseEntity

public class BaseEntity {
    private long id;

    public long getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(long id) {
        this.id = id;
    }
}

SlaveEntity

import java.util.List;

import javax.persistence.CascadeType;
import javax.persistence.FetchType;
import javax.persistence.OneToMany;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.JsonProperty;

public class SlaveEntity extends BaseEntity {
    private String ip;

    @JsonProperty("mac")
    private String macAddress;

    private String status;

    @OneToMany(mappedBy = "slave", targetEntity = PositionEntity.class, fetch = FetchType.EAGER, cascade = CascadeType.ALL)
    private List<PositionEntity> positions;

    public String getIp() {
        return ip;
    }

    public void setIp(String ip) {
        this.ip = ip;
    }

    public String getMacAddress() {
        return macAddress;
    }

    public void setMacAddress(String macAddress) {
        this.macAddress = macAddress;
    }

    public String getStatus() {
        return status;
    }

    public void setStatus(String status) {
        this.status = status;
    }

    public List<PositionEntity> getPositions() {
        return positions;
    }

    public void setPositions(List<PositionEntity> positions) {
        this.positions = positions;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return String.format(
                "SlaveEntity [id=%d, ip=%s, mac=%s, status=%s, positions=%s]",
                getId(), ip, macAddress, status, positions);
    }
}

PositionEntity

public class PositionEntity {
    // ?
}

Result

SlaveEntity [id=0, ip=123, mac=456, status=null, positions=null]
SlaveEntity [id=1, ip=111, mac=222, status=null, positions=null]

With Jackson you would do something like:

String jsonStr = "...";
ObjectReader reader = new ObjectMapper().reader();
List<Map<String, Object>> objs = reader.readValue(jsonStr);

Map<String, Object> myFirstObj = objs.get(0);
myFirstObj.get("data");
myFirstObj.get("what");
// and so on

Or even better you can create a pojo and do:

String jsonStr = "...";
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
List<MyPojo> myObjs = mapper.readValue(jsonStr, new TypeReference<List<MyPojo>>() {});
MyPojo myPojo = myObjs.get(0);
myPojo.getData();
myPojo.getWhat();
// and so on

Try this. This should do the work

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
List<QuoteDTO> selectedQuoteDTOs = mapper.readValue(jsonSelectedQuoteDTOs, new TypeReference<List<QuoteDTO>>(){});