This article takes as a starting point the segregation of urban areas and discusses schooling in the neighbourhoods typically associated with problems and challenges, in order to explore young people's responses to their schooling and social positions. Such responses include individual acts, such as rejecting further schooling or dismissing the local school in favour of prestigious ones, as well as the development of shared understandings and collective formations. The article focuses in particular on young people's responses through aesthetic practices, informal education and public political actions. Although research suggests that youths in poor areas are increasingly individualised and shows that schools provide them with little help to understand and act upon their circumstances in school, the analyses here also bring to light young people's rather strong belief in collective actions; students' formations of resistance groups and political knowledge appear as crucial resources, and, although scarce, teacher support and teaching about political actions appear as important.

Drawing on a study of a Swedish secondary school with a heterogeneous intake, this article provides an analysis of the social relations and segregation within an individual school. As shown in the analysis, young people from different socio-economic backgrounds were largely separated in school, differently positioned and in conflict with each other. The pupils typically referred to the segregation and conflict as ethnic, although strongly underpinned by economics and class. Some of the pupils’ and staff’s wish for a less segregated schooling suggested potential openings for the relations between the groups. However, this was judged to go against the will of resourceful groups of parents with whom the school leadership felt they had to comply. Central to this was parents’ freedom to choose the school, which worked in this context to further the segregation within the particular school.