“The school bus was everything.” Seeking distinction in Kenya's education system

Abstract Kenya's secondary schools are active sites of intensifying inequalities among young people, producing different kinds of subjectivities. Drawing from interview data with school graduates, I consider how young people discern the value of their education according to material resources, like new school buses and buildings. These concerns indicate students' distrust of education as intrinsically beneficial and the embeddedness of students' interests in a broader prestige economy that equates social status with wealth.