The paper is concerned with young people’s perceptions of inequalities in educational contexts and settings. It aims to present findings from qualitative data analysis of semi-structured interviews carried out in England, Denmark, France, Singapore and Germany. The research has indicated that students’ perception of inequalities is related to a number of factors such as expectations, merit, ethnicity, culture, nationality, language and family. These factors can contribute to creating an environment that can influence the way the learners perceive inequalities within various contexts and settings. The perceptions of inequalities may vary from learner to learner, but generally they are associated with incidents of being treated unfairly or excluded on account of being labelled as ‘different’ in one way or another. Fraser’s (2003) dimensions of inequalities, namely recognition, redistribution and representation, will be employed to gain a better insight into the perceptions of inequalities. The research compares findings cross-nationally, and discusses the way young people frame and connect issues of exclusion, participation and recognition.