This paper focuses on the perceptions, representations and stereotypes vocational schools’ teachers develop towards migrant and pioneer students (pioneers are people who chose a professional path where their own gender is in a minority). Our aim here is to gain knowledge of teachers’ awareness and consideration about these two categories of students, and this for a better understanding of their attitudes and practices towards them. Considering two different kinds of “minorities” (migrants and “pioneers”) by mutual clarification should enable us to get a more comprehensive picture of the social relations taking place in the classroom as a whole.

Evidence from national (Tree) and international (Pisa 2000, 2006) surveys, as well as from other studies (Haeberlin et al., 2004; Imdorf, 2007) shows that in Switzerland, a migrant background negatively influences pupils outcomes, as well as their school-to-work transition. Foreigner ratios in Swiss vocational schools is higher than in high schools (OFS, 2009), and even strongly higher when considering some occupational fields, commonly described as “academically less demanding” (e.g. construction or hairdressing, which are our research fields). At the same time, a gendered hierarchy of knowledge (Mosconi, 1994; 2005) is still existing, and also extends to the VET sector (Haeberlin et al., 2004; Croisier, 2002; Borkowski, 2001): while co-education is now the norm in compulsory school, dual VET programs in Switzerland remain extremely gender-biased (Borkowski, 2001; Hoeckel et al., 2009). VET “pioneers” may be challenged by very specific situations, both in classroom and workplace settings, and some studies show that they have a higher ratio of dropouts (Stalder & Schmid, 2006).

In this paper, we focus on the perceptions and representations teachers have of migrant and pioneer students. By perception we mean the way they apprehend these categories during their daily activities in the classroom. We use then the concept of representation in a sociological way, intended as a tool, a key to read reality, a way to think, feel and act (Moscovici, 2000). Indeed perceptions and representations are strongly related, as they influence each other by different processes such as categorisation (Tajfel & Wilkes, 1963) which is the phenomenon of classification that we use to perceive the world around us, such as objects, facts or individuals.

As “shared beliefs about personal attributes, [...] personality traits, [...] behaviours, of a group of people” (Leyens, Yzerbyt & Schadron, 1996, p.24), stereotypes are inherent to the mechanism of categorisation. It is important to emphasise, firstly, that a stereotype is always a belief shared by a particular social group, and it is never an individual fact. Secondly, a stereotype is, by definition, simplistic and imprecise: although it is designed to describe the personal characteristics of a group of individuals, it cannot apprehend one individual. Finally, a stereotype is performative: since it influences our assessment of a particular situation or person, it also determines how we act.

Finally, representations are determined by primary and secondary socialisation, by society’s dominant norms, by people’s habitus (Bourdieu, 1980), or by a given community of practice (Lave &Wenger, 1991).

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