This paper looks at developments in the social positioning of early school leavers in Austria over the last decades and argues that the deterioration in their situation cannot be attributed simply to the displacement process and changes in the employment market (e.g. as a result of globalisation), but that stigmatisation processes also play a significant role. The empirical section, which is built on this current situation in Austria, presents the main findings of a qualitative study. 123 narrative interviews with 'early school leavers' were analysed in regard to the thought and perception patterns of the young persons’ strategies for coping with the situation and the consequences of leaving school early. A multi-perspective relational methodological approach was applied. The description of the study and its methodological background shall bring out this perspective by working with Bourdieu’s core concept of habitus as well as with his notion of stigma, which he both understood as relational. Seven types of habitus could be reconstructed: the 'ambitious', the ‘disoriented’, the 'escapist', the 'resigned', the 'status-oriented', and the 'nonconformist' and the ‘impeded’. The typology experiences with stigma are the common thread that runs through all seven habitus types. After a description of the seven habitus types the topic of stigmatisation is discussed with references to Erving Goffman and Pierre Bourdieu.

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