¿Qué significa estudiar el bachillerato? La perspectiva de los jóvenes en diferentes contextos socioculturales

This article presents a qualitative study, based on in depth, semi-structured interviews, on the variousmeanings of higher secondary education for students from a school linked to university (Colegio deCiencias y Humanidades) and students from a technical school (Centro de Bachillerato TecnológicoIndustrial). The central analysis is on intergame between structural conditions and representations of thestudents. It emphasis, on the one hand, differences in social, economic and cultural background anddifferences in school-experience; and, on the other, how the subjects studied re-signify structuralconditions. Differences in gender perspectives are analyzed. The findings are discussed in the contextof mexican and global tendencies of growing access to higher secondary education and dynamics ofsocial integration and exclusion of young people.