In this article, we engage with the experiences of students in a government-run residential secondary school that enrols girls primarily from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Through an exploration of the history of the programme, secondary evaluations conducted over the years and a month-long engagement with one such residential school, we probe how the categories of disadvantage—caste and gender— continue to operate, even as the state tries to obliterate them in this space. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theorization of ‘practices’, we describe daily informal interactions in the space, highlighting their role in reinforcing and sometimes challenging extant social differences. Drawing attention to the diversity that lies even within the formal category of ‘disadvantaged’, we describe the potential and the limitations of targeted residential schooling. Our work points to the need for greater sensitivity in the planning and implementation of state-run programmes targeted at the most marginalized and a re-imagination of efforts to offer an ‘alternate field’.

在本文中，我们与政府经营的民办中学的学生互动，这些学校主要招收弱势社会经济背景的女孩。通过对该计划的历史进行探索，多年来的二次评估以及与一所这样的寄宿学校进行为期一个月的接触，我们探索了劣势类别（种姓和性别）如何继续运作，即使该州试图消除了他们在这个空间。借鉴布迪厄对“实践”的理论，我们描述了空间中日常的非正式互动，强调了它们在加强甚至挑战现有社会差异方面的作用。提请人们注意甚至在“弱势群体”的正式范畴内的多样性，我们描述了目标住宿学校的潜力和局限性。我们的工作指出，在针对最边缘化人群的国营计划的规划和实施中需要提高敏感性，并对提供“替代领域”的努力进行重新构想。