“…They call for 'a more balanced understanding of the relationship between schools and inequality, one where neutral, exacerbatory, and compensatory possibilities are all given serious consideration' (Downey and Condron, 2016: 218). While acknowledging the compensatory and exacerbatory aspects of education, in this paper (and in my larger research project, see Rédai, 2019) I focus on the (re)productive role of schools. I look at schools as places where individual subjectivities are positioned in hierarchical patterns in a network of power relations, within a broader social framework in which distinctions between social groups mean subordination, discrimination, oppression, and the exclusion of less privileged or powerful groups by more privileged or powerful groups.…”