“We learn Latin, they learn to cook”: students', principals', and teachers' coproductions of exclusive public secondary schools

Abstract. Recent years have seen growing interest in the role of selective public secondary schools as places of state-funded privilege production. Students' experiences in and perceptions of these schools are still under-researched. Focusing on the transition to Gymnasium, highly selective public secondary schools in Zurich, this article analyses how students are addressed by principals, teachers, and education policies and how they perceive the Gymnasium and its students. Drawing on a 13-month ethnography with eight students, the article shows that students learn to see the Gymnasia as stellar schools for hard-working and intelligent students who have earned their privileges. Students play an important role in coproducing and legitimizing their privileged status in the educational field by drawing on the notion of merit. Most students distanced themselves from the non-Gymnasium “other”, labeling them as less hard-working and less intelligent. These processes ultimately contribute to a hierarchization and division of Zurich's secondary schooling landscape.