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This article aims to analyse how different identity repertoires are articulated and negotiated by South African youth from disadvantaged background and belonging to the “lower” groups of the old apartheid racial hierarchy. It shows the diverse social experience of these teenagers, studied here in the context of schooling. From their point of view, the experience of adolescence turns out to be a path meandering between worlds in tension – school, church, street quarter, family, public areas – conveying contradictory values and norms that the youth handle in a plural way. Growing up in a risky environment is the concrete socialisation framework of these young people, but growing up away from racial inherited categories constitutes a symbolic challenge that allows their involvement in the youthful globalised culture.