Worst School in Town? Students in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods Reclaiming Representations of Their School

School segregation has contributed to a divided school system in Sweden, one that is divided between the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ schools. Performance differences between schools have increased over the last decades, and schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods are the most negatively affected by this development. They are also stigmatised as the ‘worst’ schools. This chapter is based on a qualitative project studying narratives of self-understanding, experiences of schooling, and plans for the future among 60 ninth-grade male and female students in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Gothenburg, Sweden. The results show how the students represent their school as a safe haven, a place associated with community, friendship, and solidarity. Furthermore, they emphasise trustful student-teacher relationships and the dialectic between these supportive relationships and student learning. In sum, the students’ narratives contribute to a problematisation and redefinition of the discourses on schools in stigmatised neighbourhoods as the ‘worst’. In relation to the students’ narratives on community and a supportive school environment, the schools could even be considered the ‘best’.