What Students Learn from Selective School Admissions Policy: An Ethnographic Study on Student Experiences at the Transition to Zurich’s $\textit{Gymnasium}$

Abstract

This thesis is an ethnographic study of student experience at the educational transition to a highly selective public secondary school type in Zurich, Switzerland: the Gymnasium. The Gymnasium is the only secondary school type in Switzerland that offers a direct route to university within the state-funded education system. Each year, about 20% of students in Zurich are accepted into Gymnasium after passing the Central Entrance Examination (CEE). Quantitative studies have repeatedly shown that social inequalities continue to be reprodu Show more