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As we enter an era of school exam league tables and student profiling, still little is known about what actually drives and motivates pupils at school. The voice of a pupil as a consumer of education is rarely heard, whether this is the voice of an achiever or a non-achiever. Moreover, we know little about how gender, class and ethnic origins affect pupils attitudes towards their teachers and subjects, their future aspirations and their actual destinations upon leaving compulsory education. This volume seeks to explore these areas using an ethnographic and interactionist approach. It explores pupils' own perspectives by focusing intensively on the school lives experienced by 20 white and black, male and female pupils in a city comprehensive during their final fifth-form year. Pupils are then shadowed in their later studies or search for work. What emerges is an interconnected pattern of differentiation based on gender, race and class considerations which operate upon pupils at various points in their school careers and subsequent search for work.