High-performing and selective secondary schools are frequently presented as meritocratic institutions designed to promote excellence and equal opportunity. In many education systems, including those in post-Soviet Central Asia, elite schools are justified as strategic investments in human capital under neoliberal reform agendas that prioritize competition, efficiency, and performance (Kemelbayeva & Kurmanov, 2024). At the same time, sociological research has consistently demonstrated that schools operate not only as sites of opportunity but also as mechanisms for the reproduction of social inequality (Moore, 2004; Domina et al., 2017). While substantial research has examined inequalities between elite and non-elite schools, far less attention has been paid to how inequalities are produced within high-performing schools themselves.

This paper addresses this gap by examining how differentiation practices inside high-performing secondary schools in Kazakhstan and Central Asia contribute to the reproduction of social hierarchies that remain largely invisible within dominant meritocratic narratives. Following market-oriented reforms, Kazakhstan has invested heavily in selective elite schools with enhanced resources, curricular autonomy, and symbolic prestige (Kemelbayeva & Kurmanov, 2024). Although these schools are formally committed to principles of fairness and achievement, access to them is strongly shaped by family resources, geographic location, and cultural capital (Kemelbayeva & Kurmanov, 2024). Beyond access, this study argues that internal differentiation mechanisms further stratify students after selection has occurred.

The study draws on three interconnected theoretical perspectives. First, research on educational differentiation highlights how schools organize students into hierarchies through tracking, grouping, and differentiated pedagogical practices, with lasting implications for educational trajectories and social mobility (Moore, 2004; Triventi et al., 2016). Importantly, differentiation operates not only through formal tracking but also through informal and “hidden” practices embedded in everyday school life (Schindler et al., 2023). Second, the framework of categorical inequality conceptualizes schools as institutions that actively construct social categories—such as “high achievers” and “average students”—which become durable markers of status and shape students’ identities, aspirations, and opportunities (Domina et al., 2017). Third, critical studies of elite schooling demonstrate how discourses of equality, excellence, and merit can legitimize inequality by framing privilege as deserved rather than structurally produced (Sriprakash et al., 2016; Weis, 2014).

Building on these perspectives, the paper introduces the concept of invisible inequalities to capture how internal differentiation within elite schools reproduces hierarchy while remaining obscured by narratives of fairness and achievement. These inequalities are “invisible” not because they lack impact, but because they are normalized through routine pedagogical practices, peer cultures, and evaluative norms.

The study is guided by three research questions:

1. How are differentiation practices enacted within high-performing secondary schools in Kazakhstan and Central Asia?
2. How do these practices shape students’ academic positioning, identities, and aspirations?
3. How do meritocratic discourses obscure or legitimize internal hierarchies within elite school contexts?

The study adopts a qualitative ethnographic methodology, which is particularly suited to examining subtle and taken-for-granted processes of inequality production within elite educational settings (Weis, 2014). Ethnography allows for close attention to everyday practices, interactions, and meanings that are often overlooked in quantitative research, especially in high-performing schools where inequality is rarely explicit. Empirical data are drawn from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in selective secondary schools in Kazakhstan, situated within a broader Central Asian post-Soviet educational context characterized by similar reform trajectories and cultural norms (Kemelbayeva & Kurmanov, 2024). Data collection includes prolonged school-based observations and semi-structured interviews with students. Observations focus on classroom organization, informal grouping, assessment practices, and teacher–student interactions that contribute to internal differentiation. Interviews explore students’ perceptions of academic ranking, ability labels, competition, and fairness. Data are analysed using thematic analysis, informed by theories of educational differentiation and categorical inequality (Moore, 2004; Domina et al., 2017). Analytical attention is paid to how institutional categories are produced through language, evaluation, and everyday routines, and how students interpret and internalize their relative position within the school hierarchy. In line with research on school sorting and aspiration formation, the analysis also examines how internal differentiation shapes students’ ambitions and educational self-concepts (Bygren & Rosenqvist, 2020). The methodological approach is reflexive, recognizing that elite schools are embedded within broader neoliberal policy contexts that valorize competition and performance (Schindler et al., 2023). Ethical considerations include ensuring anonymity and minimizing potential harm in high-stakes educational environments.

The study is expected to show that high-performing schools reproduce social hierarchies not only through selective admission but also through internal differentiation practices that stratify students after entry. Findings are likely to demonstrate that informal grouping, differential teacher expectations, and symbolic labeling contribute to the construction of hierarchical student categories, consistent with the theory of categorical inequality (Domina et al., 2017). Students positioned higher in internal hierarchies are expected to report greater access to recognition, leadership opportunities, and future-oriented guidance, while those positioned lower experience reduced visibility and more constrained aspirations. These patterns align with research showing that sorting within schools shapes students’ cultures of ambition and educational choices (Bygren & Rosenqvist, 2020). Importantly, these hierarchies are likely to be justified through meritocratic narratives that frame differentiation as fair and pedagogically necessary (Moore, 2004). The study also expects to find that discourses of equality and excellence coexist with inequality-producing practices, echoing research demonstrating how appeals to equality can function to legitimize elite privilege (Sriprakash et al., 2016). The findings contribute theoretically by extending elite school research to micro-level processes of inequality reproduction and empirically by providing rare ethnographic evidence from a Central Asian context (Weis, 2014).

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