Paradoxes of Danish egalitarianism and the political force of the hyphen. The case of high school quotas

This article explores the reaction of minoritised high school students and staff to a recent political agreement in Denmark to redefine the distribution criteria of high school places across the country and, with it, combat inequality. Ethnographic investigation of this controversial case exposes the paradoxes inherent to the Danish practice of equality, which insists on levelling outcomes but systematically excludes those who seem unfit to belong to the community of equals. The case also presents an opportunity to explore a recent shift in Danish social configurations, whereby Muslim minorities are, for the first time, emerging as a group united across their different origins and possessed of strong internal cohesion, which allows them to stake out a claim for alter-belonging in Danish society. This new configuration, we argue, carries the potential for real political change.