Abstract

The concerns over school segregation have gained salience in Finland in the last two decades, paralleling the discussions elsewhere in Europe. This article examines from the pupil perspective, how school segregation and school selection are ‘lived’ in a lower secondary school in the metropolitan area of Helsinki. Using the concept of borderwork, I examine the hierarchies produced by the divide between selective, mixed and non-selective school class groups in pupils’ social relationships, and how these hierarchies intersect with social class and racialization. The article is based on interviews of altogether 46 pupils in the 7th and 8th grades (aged 13–15). I argue that school class groupings are a strong organizing principle in pupils’ social relationships, and that pupils’ borderwork narratives on selective and non-selective school class groups build on and help consolidate the social class-based and racialized differences between the groups.

摘要

在过去的二十年中，与学校隔离有关的担忧在芬兰引起了关注，这与欧洲其他地方的讨论平行。本文从学生的角度研究了赫尔辛基都会区初中的学校隔离和选校生活。我使用边界工作的概念，研究了学生社会关系中选择性，混合和非选择性学校班级群体之间的划分所产生的层次结构，以及这些层次结构如何与社会阶层和种族化相交。本文基于对总共7年级和8年级（13至15岁）的46名学生的访谈。我认为，学校班级分组是学生社交关系中强有力的组织原则，