The discussion on elite education, the selection of top performers and advancement of excellency is a revisited subject in the contemporary public and academic debate in Germany. It contrasts to the ongoing debates in the USA, Great Britain and France. The subject "elite" was a taboo due to Germany's history, and has been taken up again in the recent years in the debate on education politics. The main themes especially centre on chosen institutions in the environment of schools and universities. That institutions design specific means of recruitment and access procedures based on their reputation as exclusive education places. Through special school profiles and programs, they raise the claim of educating tomorrow’s elite. This development in the educational sector led to a renewed discussion on social exclusion and inequality in Germany. Thus, a dilemma was raised – the dilemma of socio-economic barriers and the pursuit of genuine academic meritocracy. This is quite similar to international debates and PISA findings. 

Within the public discourse on the school system in Germany, the relation between gate keeping excellence, and preparing ‘anyone’ is hardly discussed. In the field of education some important changes took place. Firstly, almost half of the students attend schools that allow higher education certificates, and that prepare pupils for advanced academic studies. Secondly, there are new developments in view of the governance of the school system, the strengthening of school autonomy in relation to the formation of  so called educational quasi-markets and market-formed structures. These developments have led to secondary schools in urban regions of education advancing into a tension field between cooperation and competition.

Our research project focuses on exclusive schools in relation to the public discourses on elite, excellency and top performance. The analysis refers to the institutional side, and especially to mechanisms of selection, coherence and institutional distinction. The aim of the project is to obtain new knowledge on habitus creation in the context of the differentiation of the education landscape. Therefore, we combine the institutional analysis of chosen exclusive secondary schools, and contrasting secondary schools (non-exclusive) with a longitudinal survey from the 8^th grade until half a year after graduation for chosen, contrasting students. Mainly from a micro-sociological perspective,  we focus on analyzing school as institution, micro processes of selection, distinction and coherence. Especially referring to Bourdieu's theory of habitus, we are analyzing habitus formations in “prestigious” and less “prestigious” secondary schools. 

In our presentation, we want to raise the question, how and if mutual profiles of distinction and distinctive specialisation occur in secondary schools. In this way, interpretative patterns of school directors are identified. Especially we will clarify the meaning of distinctive semantics for school directors, and how they position themselves, when it comes to terms such as elite, excellency or high achievement. We will show that the German school directors in our sample try to live up to universalistic benchmarks and to downplay the excluding moment.

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