“Machos” and “Top Girls”: Photographic Self-Images of Berlin Hauptschüler

Abstract

The German Hauptschule, typically attended by lower-class and immigrant students, is located at the bottom of the tripartite German school system. Hauptschüler have become a perceived social type, even distinct cultural figures. As photographic self-portrayals are crucial for the complicated task of identity construction under conditions of exclusion and disrespect, a closer look at selfies of Berlin Hauptschüler opens a window through which one can comprehend how aesthetic processes respond in ambivalent ways to social positioning. By combining ethnographic and media research, Stefan Wellgraf shows how the self-portrayals of Hauptschüler are orientated toward gendered ideal types, which he summarizes under the terms “machos” and “top girls.” His interpretations and findings depend on a combination of analysis of selected mediatic self-presentations with ethnographic research, mainly by interviews and participant observations of practices and interactions both inside and outside of school. Wellgraf offers a socially situated analysis of patterns of mediated self-images, which he connects to the dominant everyday politics of style among Berlin Hauptschüler, and thus shows how class, race, and gender relations are articulated and reproduced but also contested and subverted through selfie practices.