6

This article revisits young people’s post-compulsory decisions regarding vocational training programs. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in a lower secondary school in western Switzerland, it shows how, in this differentiated space, working-class specific habitus can explain these decisions regarding different vocational training options. These habitus are shaped by a range of principles that distinguish among the working classes themselves. The originality of this approach is to link young people’s decisions to teachers’ pedagogical work. In the Swiss education system, which is divided into different paths with little permeability between them, these teachers attempt to adjust young people’s subjective aspirations to their own perceptions of professional integration opportunities. This study raises questions about the sense and transformations of counter-school culture among working-class boys and girls.