Conference Program

Based on the results of a collective, multi-site, and multi-phase fieldwork conducted in some of Brussels' most disadvantaged neighborhoods, involving nearly one hundred young people (aged 18-30), mainly from lower social classes and primarily of second-generation immigrant backgrounds (mainly Turkish, Moroccan, Congolese), this presentation aims to contribute to debates about how young people from urban lower classes are politically socialized within the school environment, as well as their so-called political passivity. Research in political and social sciences on political socialization—particularly related to institutional and electoral forms of politics—indicates that political engagement tends to increase with higher levels of education and qualifications (Evans, Stubager & Langsather 2022, Kohn 2018; Gozzo & Sampugnara 2016). Specifically, within schools, social inequalities affect access to activities like serving as class representatives or participating in school events on societal issues, which foster political involvement (Hoskins, Janmaat & Melis 2017). Overall, schools and citizenship courses typically involve students in politics only minimally and often reinforce existing inequalities (Percheron 1984; Douniès 2019). However, beyond phenomena such as the political dispossession of lower-class youth from activities related to institutional politics—especially as demonstrated by quantitative research—there is a resurgence of the French tradition of political socialization (Mayer & Muxel 1993), where socialization encompasses processes through which youth internalize and adopt social norms, both vertically and horizontally, from various agents like school, family, work, media, and peers (Bargel 2020; Boughaba et al. 2019; Galland 2022; Can 2025; Michiels 2025). In this trend, a Bourdieusian-inspired qualitative sociology has started examining how working-class youth and their families are differently socialized into political participation through their daily but unequal interactions with schools (Barrault-Stella, Bongrand, Hugrée & Siblot 2020; Millet & Thin 2020). Although these studies are both stimulating and promising, the dominant categories within the education field tend to portray young people from working-class backgrounds as more passive than their more privileged counterparts in these processes. Against this trend, this presentation aims to understand the processes of political socialization among young people from working-class backgrounds within the school setting, situating them at the intersection of the school field and what we conceptualize as the 'sub-field'. By combining Bourdieu's theory with cultural and subaltern studies (Willis 1977, Scott 1985 & 1990), our initial argument is that the processes of political socialization of working-class youth within the school field are often studied only by reflecting the effect of the dominant legitimacy, highlighting a rather passive role within the school environment. Second, we introduce the concept of 'sub-field', which is essential for understanding how deprived neighborhoods function as a result of urban segregation dynamics and how they can lead to different forms of consciousness, identification, and political belonging among young people from working-class backgrounds. Third, we demonstrate how 'infra-politics' (Scott 1985 & 2006) which develop among young people from working-class backgrounds and minorities—leaving 'few traces in the public record' (Lazzeri 2012) , and shaped by informal collective relationships and organizations within neighborhoods—come into tension with the logics and categories within the educational institution.